Payne says: "The SPL-runts were just amazing, and exceeded everybody's expectations. The guy who runs the place, Steve Rubie, who is a musician himself and has owned the club for almost all of its 30 years, was skeptical about whether two small speakers would cover what is basically a very wide room. It's about 65ft wide by only 20ft deep, with the stage area in the centre on one side."
Indeed, the 606 Club's small size belies its huge reputation. "It holds about 160 people when it's filled to capacity. It's a very difficult room because it's in a basement, there's a really low ceiling, and sound-wise it's a nightmare. But the SPL-runts deliver in a completely different way to anything else that's out there."
"They're so well suited for jazz", continues Payne, "because they have a wonderfully transparent, responsive mid-range, which is great for horns and voices and they fill a room beautifully. As another contractor who installs SPL products observed: you just hear the source, rather than hearing speakers reproducing the sound."
As a result, he observes, the SPL-runts can offer an unequalled solution to any room plagued by the sort of acoustical problems experienced by the 606 Club. "There's a bad standing wave in there due to the low ceiling and there's a horrible delay in the room as well," he reports. "Even the very best conventional baffle-loaded speakers would need a lot of processing to make them sound half decent. For the weeks trial, we simply ran the 'runt's side by side with the existing system which consists of no less than 10 JBL and Tannoy speakers. We used a small Mackie mixing desk and a decent Crown power amp plugged straight into the speakers. With minimal EQ and no other processing they sounded terrific straight out of the box."
Another advantage of the speaker design was highlighted at the venue, where the SPL-runts were positioned either side of the compact stage. Payne explains: "One of the great strengths of the 'runt' is they're so directional with such tight pattern control, you can put them really close to a performing area and you don't get the kind of feedback problems you get with conventional speakers. At one point, jazz pianist wunderkind, Jamie Cullum, was standing on the piano stool singing flat out into a high gaincondenser mic that was literally six-inches from the speaker. Try doing that with any other cabs and you'd have feedback nightmares!"
The club's owner was so impressed with the performance of the SPL-runts that he's now asked Sound Physics Labs to specify a complete system, Payne says: "We're going to use the APB-2: Sound Physics Labs new high output compact sub bass cabinet to handle the low end. The size of the venuerestricts us from using a conventional sized sub bass cab, so the APB-2, which packs a huge punch for its size, is ideal . . . I'm confident that this will give the 606 one of the best small club sound systems in the world."
(Lee Baldock)
