Situated in the Harbourside regeneration area, Zen is a luxurious, glass-fronted building on Millennium Square that caters for up to 400. The design mixes old and new, combining marbled toilets with chic private dining rooms. Zen artefacts, Chinese paintings and period Chinese furnishings complete the experience.
Owner Suzanna Ho, who also founded Dynasty in the BS1 postal district, is accustomed to renting in potent PA systems for corporate events; and with funky house music added selectively to the eclectic menu at Zen, she again needed a system at the same time capable of producing warm-sounding background music and a medium night club sound.
AET (Abbeymoor Electrical Technical) were recommended to the project by Premier Sound & Light in Bridgewater (who had been supplying the earlier rental systems); when Martin Hancock's Glastonbury-based installation company contacted near neighbours Batmink - major Harman Pro distributors - he was introduced to the new Control 321C 12" large-format ceiling speaker, with its coaxial point source and large square grille.
"When Grant Thomas showed me these 250W power handling speakers I had no idea that I would become the first customer in the UK to use them," said Hancock. Also an owner of the local Abbeymoor Stadium, home of Glastonbury Town FC, he took one of the new Control 321C's into the function room at the Stadium and fired it up. "The power was awesome," he said, "and the 90° top end span, with a dispersion of eight metres from a 5-metre height - was exactly as it said on the spec."
(Jim Evans)
