Dev Electronics serves up JBL at Aqaba
Published: ASIA
INDIA: Mumbai-based Dev Electronics has installed a JBL sound system at fine-dining restaurant, Aqaba. With music forming a prominent aspect of the restaurant’s ambience, the new audio system was required to deliver ‘performance, coverage and clarity’ without detracting from the space’s clean aesthetic.
Located in Mumbai’s busy uptown area of Lower Parel, Aqaba provides diners with an eclectic mix of food and beverages and an equally eclectic selection of accompanying music – popular and recognisable tunes across genres encompassing retro, pop, commercial, progressive, house, deep house, techno and more.
A day typically starts off with retro tunes before graduating on to a more up-tempo groove as the day progresses, turning the venue into a high energy party place by the end of the night. This is in addition to a variety of concept gigs, live performances, sundowners and much more that the venue keeps hosting on-and-off.
One of the venue’s resident DJs, DJ Amit Sanghavi, explained the importance of music to the business. ‘Aqaba is a place where one comes to chill out and unwind. The kind of music we play here is designed to suit the ears and engage the listening pleasure of the clientele that visit Aqaba regularly. Usually, a typical day is witness to a range of music, starting off with retro and soft pop in the afternoon, which slowly leads into lounge, progressive, house and then more up tempo stuff like techno. We pretty much end the day on a high note, with a lot of energy. People who visit regularly love the vibe of the place, especially for its music, with many of them complimenting us for the quality of music we play. And yes, a lot of people compliment us on the fact that the music we play sounds absolutely fantastic.
‘This, I believe, is mainly because we have a fantastic audio system in place. For starters, the DJ has his very own console space decked with a pair of Pioneer CDJ2000 Nexus turnables and a single Pioneer DJM900 Nexus mixer, which gives the DJ the advantage of having state-of-the-art DJ gear at their disposal. Then there’s the JBL system that is spread across the indoor and outdoor space, which sounds absolutely brilliant as it perfectly supports the varied genres of music that we play across the day.’
The audio system installed includes a pair of STX 815 and a pair STX 812 loudspeakers along with a pair each of STX 818 and STX 828 subwoofers. All of the main cabinets are driven by Crown XTi6002 and XTi4002 amplifiers. The system also sports ten JBL 8128 ceiling speakers and four JBL Control CRV weather-resistant loudspeakers strategically placed across the expanse of the venue so as to ensure optimum coverage. These are powered by a single Crown MA280 mixer/amplifier.
‘I think the JBL system integrated at Aqaba is the perfect match to suit the requirements of the space in every aspect, be it performance, coverage, clarity and even aesthetics,’ added Dev Electronics’ Ketan Shetty. ‘Integrating Aqaba with the perfect blend of products from JBL and Crown happened quite naturally. Yes, we did have quite a few challenges in designing the perfect soundscape for the place, with key factors being the ceiling height of the space and the presence of glass almost everywhere across the venue. However, thanks to the understanding, support and co-operation of the Aqaba owners/management and their team of external consultants and in-house staff, we were able to work through these challenges and overcome them successfully to create a space that sounds spectacular irrespective of the genre of music played.’
‘The guys from Dev Electronics have done a fantastic job of ensuring that the audio quality in terms of coverage, power and performance is absolutely phenomenal,’ concluded DJ Amit Sanghavi. ‘From the huge variety of gigs that we’ve hosted, the most memorable one I guess was the Christmas Eve party in 2014, which had a capacity turn out with people grooving on the floor into the wee hours. That night, though we pushed the system, we found that we still had loads of room to keep going. And through it all, the system sounded amazing.’