Help- setup for 1500 sq ft cafe

[Ken Boyd]

The point I am making is you can't really tell its not stereo. Your not sitting in a dedicated seat with the correct spacing for two speakers to be of equal distance. With speakers all over you get a stadium or concert hall type of effect.

How much of the time will their be a DJ? Do you want to invest in two systems? Because most every restaurant out their has a sound system. We put limiters on the VC control because as much as some of the staff might want to turn it up, most of the time the customers are saying, could you turn it down, we can't talk over the music. So if you go with a typical DJ set up with two PA speakers on stands or bins with arrays, your going to have some loud music up front and in the back of the house depending on how much you crank the VC it might not be to loud. A properly set up distributed sound system the sound levels are pretty even thought an establishment. VC controls are under the control of specific people either by limited access, (keyed VC controls), or the VC controls and other controls are locked in a cabinet or the managers office. Or you can have a laptop device or tablet which controls the functions of music sources, and VC controls.

A good system would be more versatile and work for both applications. If you wanted you could still use a additional PA system for with you have special events, simply add your front PA speakers or bins amps and such, and then have a receptacle in the area where you plug in the system to use with the regular sound system, its just another source that you can dedicate to your processor.

 

[soundmotor]

I have found stereo to be a complete waste of time in these types of venues. We not talking critical listening here, half the people are going to be talking to each others and with all the sounds going on in a restaurant or bar, just having multiple sound sources is fine. Has anyone ever gone to a live venue? They are not stereo.

The OP wants a DJ on some nights, Nothing crazy, just people playing records in a chill environment. Why wouldn't you shoot for the best sound quality with that requirement? Besides, if you want multimono you convert on the source side with a combiner. The wiring to your speakers is the same either way if you use a stereo integrated amp.

 

[45rpmspinner]

I have found stereo to be a complete waste of time in these types of venues. We not talking critical listening here, half the people are going to be talking to each others and with all the sounds going on in a restaurant or bar, just having multiple sound sources is fine. Has anyone ever gone to a live venue? They are not stereo.

Exactly. Mono is the way to go. In most cases, it will sound better at low volume.

I sometimes eat breakfast in a place with a distributed stereo system.
Given the architect involved in the design, I'm quite sure the system was professionally installed using good components.
However, almost no matter where you sit you'll only hear one channel.....that is, unless it's turned up to a level where customers start to complain [myself included].

More than that, a fairly recent study showed that playing music in a restaurant actually made customers leave sooner.
While that might be a good thing for the owner's bottom line, it doesn't exactly point to an overall enhanced customer experience.

Anyway, if you're serious about having nice sound, I suggest consulting with an acoustician.
Imo, playing music in a restaurant with bad room acoustics [by far the most common scenario] amounts to little more than raising the overall noise level.

 

[WaynerN]

Sometimes it is. The venue gets the prosound company estimate and kacks over the price.

Regarding the LRLRLR layout @musichal mentioned, it works well up to moderately high volume but there may be a fall-off in intelligibility if played at tough to talk levels. Still, for an all analog system with no processing or delay it can be quite impressive. You can use a speaker selector to have nominal zone control over the room and a single 4-ohm stable Japanese integrated amp to run everything.

The only thing I'd do differently in yours is add powered speakers flanking the DJ area . You would shut off the normal pair there w/ the switchbox (or not, depends on what sounds best) when you use the powered ones. A mixer handles the volume control for the powered speakers and you could split the output from it to the integrated amp to control the normal speaker pairs. The mixer then provides the master volume control for both.

This is the layout for a LRLRLR speaker setup. Basically wherever you are in the room you are always within a stereo pair -

It's been awhile since I've set one of these up so any corrections appreciated.

This is not the way I would do the cafe. It certainly is seating dependent (which none of us except the OP knows for sure), but I would keep all the speakers on one side of the wall one channel and the speakers on the other side of the wall, the other channel. I have played (and operate) stereo speakers on the side walls, and it works very well. So my config. would be RRR, LLL. If not this way, then Ken (and others have suggested a stereo blend (to mono).

People that think stereo is important to them while at the cafe, will find the sweet spot (IMO).

The problem with an RLR/LRL config is that everyone will be exposed to some degree of cross-talk modulation, which in itself, cancels the "stereo" effect. And the degree of this effect is also seating dependent............

 

[soundmotor]

This is not the way I would do the cafe. It certainly is seating dependent (which none of us except the OP knows for sure), but I would keep all the speakers on one side of the wall one channel and the speakers on the other side of the wall, the other channel. I have played (and operate) stereo speakers on the side walls, and it works very well. So my config. would be RRR, LLL. If not this way, then Ken (and others have suggested a stereo blend (to mono).

People that think stereo is important to them while at the cafe, will find the sweet spot (IMO).

The problem with an RLR/LRL config is that everyone will be exposed to some degree of cross-talk modulation, which in itself, cancels the "stereo" effect. And the degree of this effect is also seating dependent............

It is not seating dependent as you might think, the whole area is diffused which is the point. People don't really comment on the stereo "image" only whether or not the system sounds good. In my first post note that you will lose intelligibility when volume levels are high. High like too loud to talk high. I would not do this in a club or bar but going by the OP's initial comments, that's not his establishment either. Further, you can change the L/R allocation at the speaker box in 5 minutes and set it up any way you want. I am fairly certain there is no issue like an explosion if you try both out.

 

[Ken Boyd]

All I have in my defense, is thousands of installs in some of the most established business in the country. I have a new job now so I haven't done any installs in over a year, but the lasts jobs I did were a rollout of Season 52 Bar upgrades, where we pulled out the grand piano's which they replaced with a light liquor display, and replaced all the JBL speakers with new QSC speakers and added a bunch of subs. And I did a couple of midsize installs of 24 hour Fitness, which actually have quite a few speakers, subs, and quite a few big flat screens, and a 9 screen video wall. I liked the big basket ball court on the upstairs.

 

[Ken Boyd]

I have used these on a few installs, most of the installs are the more common JBL control series of QSC copies, but these EAW's really sounded good.

http://eaw.com/portfolio_page/cis400/

Most all the speakers like these have selector switches which allow you to select from 8 ohms to different tap settings using a 70 volt amp. Most all professional installations use the 70 volt summed mono install. But I have done a few where some rooky thinks they know what's best and goes with the 8 ohm taps and that requires a bunch of home runs to a multi channels amp, or a series, parallel install that is so hard for other rookies that come out later to do service work. Remember if you use 8 ohm speakers every time you add another speaker on the run it drops the impedance in half. It doesn't take to many speakers before you amp is dead. Long runs with lots of speakers is best with speakers designed for theses types of installs. And you have bathrooms which you want to add speakers. And the Kitchen usually wants it own music usually different from the restaurant. Many times we install a Tuner in them, as since that location is not for attracting customers, but rather just for employee enjoyment, you don't need a commercial account for. The kitchen people never want to listen to the same music that is repeating it self over and over in the main dinning room. They want a radio station that plays the same music over and over from typical station.

 

[WaynerN]

We don't know the shape of the cafe either. My lower level is 1500 sq. ft.. If the cafe is square shaped, or not to "rectangular", the OP might get away with just 2 speakers or a quasi-4 speaker stereo, like I run in my vinyl room. I just think in the LRL/RLR arrangement and I was facing a wall that had speakers I would here both the L and the R with the same ears, but flipped the other way with the other ear. I think that would kill the stereo image, then I would rather just run mono ala Ken Boyd concept.

It would be a great idea to experiment with the arrangement before the permanent install is done. Nothing is better then actually being there to demo the success of one technique vs the other.