d&b for Ménagé's VIP zones
The Ménagé club from the outside looks like a candy cane explosion. Three stories of early Twentieth Century commercial architecture colourfully lit on an otherwise unprepossessing street in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Inside it is an Aladdin's cave, one of Charlotte's most talked about clubs. Home to world class DJs from as far a field as the UK and Australia, it hosts some of the most well appointed VIP lounges ever seen.
"We began by working with the club manager, as is demanded in these environments, "recalls audio installation guru, Donnie Haulk, owner and PA system design Svengali of Audio Ethics." He is the best person to tell you what people expect to hear, where and when they want to hear it." So is the system multi-zoned and pre-programmed to accommodate those demands? "Oh yes, we installed a Symetrix Control system, eight by eight DSP. We have even installed localised control to program material. Understand, the club is on three levels with a live stage downstairs, so listeners may be fed one of several choices of music program, hence local control of level and source to all of the many VIP areas."
What about the rest of the club? "Well, the top level is all VIP and that's where we put the high end d&b audiotechnik system. There are two B2 subwoofers fitted beneath semicircular sofas beside the dance floor. Elsewhere on that level, and throughout the other levels for that matter, you will find a mixture of d&b Ci90, C7, E3 and E0 loudspeakers, right down through the building. The building is an old industrial style with high ceilings so we have been able to tuck the loudspeakers out of sight. As I said, the top floor is a private club effectively, but there are VIP spaces on all three levels, so there are literally dozens of control zones. Tim Owens our network control genius zoned the place up, he also designed the loudspeaker-positioning layout with me. It's been in a few months now and everybody has been really happy with the results, even the most exacting DJs."
The proof of such assertions is in the pudding as they say, so I asked Haulk to qualify. "Well Stefan is now contemplating a live performance club, somewhere for twelve to fourteen hundred people, but the right location hasn't presented itself yet. This will be quite a different club with a very different feel, though it will have DJs as well as touring bands and we have already been asked to design and install the PA."
