Radisson RED Sky Bar

The hotel’s General Manager, Graham Chalmers envisaged a ‘club sound’ vibe for the hotel’s rooftop Sky Bar, creating a design-led ‘destination’ venue. As an electronic music fan himself, and therefore au fait with Void systems, Graham acknowledges that “the existing background sound system no longer met our needs.”  His brief to Nadar Shahzad from Lanarkshire-based installer Blue Audio was for “something acoustically special, and much more than you would usually expect of a hotel bar.”

Void Acoustics offered Radisson RED all it needed in terms of sound quality ensuring every aspect of the system was truly fit for purpose in the 250-capacity space. The clean warm sound of the Airten V3 from Void’s flagship Air Series with the revolutionary “jet engine” design was chosen as the key system speaker because its well-balanced sound fitted seamlessly into the ambience that the team were seeking to create, as well as looking aesthetically pleasing.

Nadar, a long-term integration partner for Void Acoustics, was pleased to help the hotel team achieve their ambitious vision, whilst also addressing significant challenges given the type of system being deployed. 

One such challenge was ensuring no audio ‘bleed’ into other areas of the hotel, particularly any bass transfer down through the building and into guest bedrooms on the floors directly below the bar. In order to overcome this potential noise leakage, and reduce the transmission of vibrations, the Venu 115 V2 subwoofers were mounted into the ceiling on custom cradles.

The integration team took full advantage of the in-built DSP in the Bias Q2 amplifiers which were deployed to support the system, tuning the system to eliminate as much of the resonant frequencies and reducing noise leakage without adversely affecting the desired ‘club’ vibe of the system.  

The Bias amplifier range also offers a series of presets (through the software Armonia) which focus on performance and reliability. Not only do these help protect the loudspeaker components from accidental damage, but many of the presets have FIR (Finite Impulse Response) filters providing greater clarity and coherence to the system. A further benefit of this software is that it allows for zone control, source selection and volume adjustment without the need for any third-party products. 

These additional attributes of the Bias range are invaluable for hotel installations as they provide additional reliability whilst reducing cost.

The final aspects of the installation included the DJ monitor consisting of more Airten loudspeakers and the maximum performance Bias D1 amplifier.    

All-in-all, the system deployment into this hotel environment demonstrates perfectly how Void’s product offering caters for a much wider range of uses outside of the traditional club and party scenes. 

And with the contemporary look and high-quality aesthetic of Void’s Air, Venu and Cyclone ranges, Nadar agrees that “rather than traditional looking speakers, it is clear there are visually appealing solutions which also happen to sound incredible!”   

There is no doubt that the brief was met by Blue Audio with this significant Void Acoustics installation. As Nadar concludes “This installation was set to make a statement to its stakeholders – to hotel guests and locals that this bar was a place they wanted to ‘experience’; and to club promoters and high profile acts and DJs that this bar was a venue where they wanted to perform!”