UK - Living Ventures takes its music seriously. Despite using a hard drive delivery system to distribute music through their 13-strong Living Room bar/restaurant estate, the company's head of music, Steve Walter knows that the art of achieving the optimum mix is too complex to be entrusted to remote customer profilers and preset track categorisations.

"The music content and environmental management are a vital part of our offer, which is why we invest heavily in our sound systems and installation expertise," he says.

For the new flagship Living Room W1 in London's fashionable Heddon Street, Green-I has installed multiples of Martin Audio's new horn-loaded AQ6 and AQ8 architectural enclosures - liveried in white and brown custom colours to match interior designer's Shideh Shaygun's imaginative concept. These maintain the moods over the defined time cycles into which the trading day is divided.

Green-I's Ian Woodall and Paul McCauley, who headed up the 'in-house' installation team, have been fastidious in the detailing of the five-zoned interior, ensuring all the carefully-loomed cabling is concealed, the stage processing rack is chased into the wall (using durable right-angled connectors) and that the Martin Audio speaker bracketry could be customised to enable the enclosures to be run flat against the walls and ceiling. It thus becomes an intrinsic part of the design rather than looking like an afterthought.

It has enabled Green-I to mount the AQ's in either rotatable horizontal format - like bookshelf speakers around the open fires in the middle of the venue - or vertically. A mixture of AQ6's and AQ8's are used around the bar and dining area on the ground floor (with AQ8's exclusively serving the piano stage area).

Upstairs, in the formal dining area, they have deployed further multiples of yoke-mounted AQ6's, angled down to the floor, the use of Phoenix connectors allowing these to be mounted flush to the walls.

The AQ series also offered the necessary versatility to reproduce music at low volume during daytime trading, to the wide range of live acts who plug into the stage system five nights a week, where a resplendent white Yamaha GT7 digital grand piano is awaiting them. In the same area, a carpeted flight-cased DJ containing industry standard playback/mixing equipment, will come into play at the weekend.

As a final touch, Radio 4 plays Just A Minute on a permanent loop to cubicle dwellers in the cleverly-themed downstairs toilets through Martin Audio C516 ceiling speakers.

(Jim Evans)


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