d&b cooking up a storm at Hotel Maher in Spain
Listed as one of the finest restaurants in Spain, the Maher Hotel in Cintruénigo on the banks of the Ebro just one hour south of Pamplona, is renowned for its ability to mix unlikely ingredients and conspire to make them sumptuous, satisfying, delicious and daring. When the owners approached Jesús Lavilla of Gradual Event to design and install a PA system at Maher, his thoughts, once he had recovered from the shock, turned immediately to ingredients. “This was to be no ‘background music’ system. The owners were single minded; the quality and definition of the system needed to be on a parallel with the food.”
Gradual Event has the skills and experience to address such demands, the company provides both installation and rental service to the Basque region, specialising in sound and light. “All the many valuable lessons we learn in servicing special events in a variety of challenging acoustic environments is applied directly to our installation designs,” said Lavilla. “With such a prestige location I knew only the best would do, and that for me meant a system with pedigree, a system from d&b audiotechnik.”
Already a d&b Partner, Lavilla knew the equipment parameters well, surveyed the restaurant, and determined a system design comprising d&b E15X-SUBs, and from the installation specific d&b White range, the 12S loudspeaker. “The d&b xS-Series from which the 12S is drawn, is a very useful tool for me,” said Lavilla. “In a beautiful environment such as Maher I can immediately specify a colour match for the cabinet, as is normal with top quality installation systems, but the performance far outweighs anything comparable from other manufacturers.” The 12S is a biaxial two-way loudspeaker, the rotatable HF horn providing 75° by 50° dispersion. “This gives me flexibility in mounting attitude, meaning I could always achieve perfect coverage with due consideration to the aesthetics of placement. Although the twelve inch bass reflex part of the cabinet gives frequency response down to 48 Hz, I added the E15X-SUB for added warmth and presence; as the owners requested, the performance had to parallel the food. For me food has to look good and taste good, for audio it has to sound good and feel good; both experiences must be complete to be totally satisfying.”
Maher is an experience not to be taken lightly; revered restaurant critics such as Ivan Martinez-Cubells or Pepe Barrena are in no doubt; another, Jose Carlos Capel is typical “El refinamiento y la tènica culinaria de Enrique Martinez se refleja en la percepciòn con la que resuelve cada uno de sus platos.” And you don’t need to speak Spanish to understand that. Head Chef Enrique Martinez is expecting similar plaudits from the pro audio world, just as soon as they make a reservation.
