Category: Optimal Audio

In multi-purpose venues, such as hotels or event spaces, good sound system design plays a crucial role. It not only enhances the ambiance but also facilitates clear communication, whether it’s music, speeches, or announcements. At Optimal Audio, we recognise the significance of designing products that provide installers the flexibility to meet the unique needs of any venue, ensuring that every sound is delivered with precision and clarity.

Keep it simple

When designing a sound system for a multi-purpose venue, ease of use is paramount. Optimal Audio’s WebApp, hosted on a webserver within Zone, provides a user-friendly interface that allow anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to operate the sound system effortlessly. It can be accessed from any device with a web browser and empowers users to control music playback, adjust volume levels, and manage different audio zones with simplicity. By mirroring the familiarity of smartphones and tablets, our web-based control solution provides an intuitive experience for users, reducing the learning curve and giving venue staff a sound system that is easy to use.

Keep your staff focused on the job in hand

One of the standout features of Zone’s WebApp is its powerful routines functionality. Routines serve as a convenient way to store and recall specific settings for regularly occurring events. Whether it’s source selection or volume level, routines play a vital role in ensuring a multi-purpose venue can adapt quickly.

Matt Rowe, Optimal Audio Head Engineer comments:

“We’ve witnessed venues and installers leveraging routines to cater to different event types. For instance, in a multi-purpose venue that offers space rentals for various functions, there may be occasional requests for sports events. By creating a dedicated routine that automatically selects the HDMI source and plays the sound from the TV, staff members can effortlessly fulfil such requests. All they need to do is navigate to the routines section and simply click on a configured routine”.

Great sound quality without breaking the bank

The design of a commercial audio sound system is often accompanied by budget considerations. Optimal Audio’s product offering is cost-effective without compromising audio quality. Our IP54 rated products, such as the Cuboid 3 and 5, demonstrate how smaller speakers can produce remarkable sound, while larger speakers in the Cuboid range offer exceptional performance at competitive prices. Our simplified offering of carefully selected products helps venues achieve outstanding results without breaking the bank.

Let’s summarise

Designing sound systems for multi-purpose venues is a complex task that goes beyond selecting amplifiers and speakers. Optimal Audio specialises in creating products that are flexible and excel in variety of multi-purpose applications. With a focus on cost-effectiveness and user-friendliness, our commercial audio eco-system helps create seamless experiences for any multi-purpose venue, without the control headaches of conventional commercial audio systems.

Take WebApp for a spin

For the first time, our WebApp is available as an offline tool for you to get more familiar with its power and functionality. Download our Desktop Demo for PC and Mac and see for yourself how WebApp is revolutionising commercial audio.

Cosmic Electronics installs zoned Optimal Audio system at London’s latest culinary hotspot…

Named for the iconic Celtic warrior queen, and located in the heart of London’s thriving culinary scene in Battersea, recently-opened restaurant Boudica is a stylishly presented venue catering for brunch, lunch, dinner and drinks. Transitioning through the day from a quiet chilled space to a lively cocktail bar with top DJs, Boudica is focused on delivering classic comfort food with international and contemporary twists in an immersive, luxurious setting.

Music will play a key role in precisely establishing the right ambience for Boudica’s changing moods, and with audio reinforcement in mind, co-founder Ed Allingham sought advice from Mark Damon, Director at leading installers Cosmic Electronics.

Damon recommended an Optimal Audio solution for Boudica, having been impressed with its commercial audio offering since attending the company’s launch in 2021:

“The Optimal Audio package caught my attention from the off – its emphasis on simplifying commercial audio for the benefit of installers and end-users, whilst maintaining audio quality, was very appealing. Having used elements of the ecosystem on several jobs now, it’s certainly lived up to its billing. When the Boudica project arose, I had no hesitation in recommending Optimal Audio.”

Boudica operates across two floors with the main downstairs restaurant comprising a bar to the left of the space, rear seating and side seating, while the upstairs space is reserved for private dining. The brief required a zoned audio system that could meet the varying requirements of the spaces, from low-key background music at one end of the spectrum to DJ sets at the other.

The system was divided into 6 zones, namely bar, dining area, entrance, upstairs dining, terrace and toilets, and deployed an Optimal Audio Zone 8P at its heart. The Zone 8P is an 8-zone audio controller with DSP, amplification and WebApp. The unit incorporates 8 channels of 100W integrated amplification at 4ohms or 8ohms. The onboard WebApp unlocks the full potential of Zone, providing easy access to EQs, speaker presets and time-of-day routines, and is compatible with any device to make for a straightforward setup.

Cosmic installed 6 x Cuboid 8 two-way, full-range, passive 8” on-wall loudspeakers mounted on UB1-B horizontal brackets, and 3 x Sub 15 high-power subwoofers for the bar and restaurant, with 2 x Up 6 two-way passive full-range 6” ceiling speakers for the upstairs room. A single Up 6 was deployed in each of the venue’s two rest rooms. The system is powered by 2 x Optimal Audio SmartAmp 30 (4 x 250W amplifier with integral DSP).

Any hospitality venue can use music to communicate the feeling it seeks to evoke—whether it’s a soothing retreat from busy daily life or a contemporary concept venue. The right music and speaker deployment leaves no doubt about it. It will help cement the desired image and reinforce your brand ethos from the very moment of entry, until your customers leave.

Sound, like all the other senses, is a means of establishing an emotional bond with customers. In 1982, Milliman and colleagues conducted research in New York City to examine how music tempo influences buying behaviour. The study found that playing slow music resulted in customers spending more time in the store and a substantial increase (32 percent) in gross sales, as opposed to when fast music was played. By creating a comfortable ambiance that encourages customers to linger and make more purchases, mellow, down-tempo music generates more revenue.

Music triggers a chain reaction within the human body, leading to physical and emotional effects, but it can also trigger strong memories. The first chord of a favourite song can transport a person to an earlier time and translate those emotions to the present. Spending time and budget on décor, furnishings and lighting is important, but many forget about the impact that a great sound-system and the right music can have on sales.

Let music make money for your business

As a business owner in the hospitality industry– be it a hotelier, a restaurant manager or owner of a chain of bars, there is a great opportunity to create the right ambiance, which is both aligned to your brand, as well as will enhance your overall guest experience.

Ambiance is a key ingredient in the delivery of exceptional service, which in turns generates customer loyalty and revenue. If you get this right, you open the door to a fruitful relationship with your customers and partners.

Sound is crucial in setting the exact tone for a space. Loud, buzzy, energetic music immediately gives a vigour and excitement to the air and therefore guests are more exaggerated, flamboyant, and full of energy. Laid-back, sultry music sets a tone for indulgent evenings but at a more relaxed pace. Music is essential to set the pace of the experience.

Stand out from the competition

Businesses are regularly on the lookout for innovative ways to boost their brand for it to stand out, often the simpler, the better. Usually when thinking of the components that create a brand, or customer experience, visual elements such as logo, signage, colours, textures and even smell are considered.

The role of music in establishing an identity is too often overlooked, especially as it’s a cost-effective and direct way to establish desired outcomes.

Music is probably one of the more subconscious inspirations of interior design. A lot of the same elements of interior design are found in music: rhythm, harmony, repetition, movement. Music and design are very much connected. And in the same way a musician will combine all of these musical techniques to create sound-based ambience, designers combine design elements and principles to create physical ambience. Then, when combined, the two really complement one another.

Creating a good sound environment for your guests

Sound affects us 24 hours a day and the difference between a pleasant, well-designed sound environment and an unpleasant, noisy sound environment can be crucial. Both when it comes to the overall experience of the space, but also when it comes to health.

But getting the right background music and ambiance is one thing, what about the sound system itself? It doesn’t matter if they’re playing your favourite song if it sounds ‘tinny’, ‘harsh’ or just ‘incoherent’. Equally, if you’ve invested money into a good sound system, but it takes your staff away from the important jobs at hand because the system is too complex to manage, then it just creating more headaches.

This is where Optimal Audio excels. Ideal for small to medium sized multi-zoned hospitality installations, our streamlined portfolio makes selecting the right product, quick and simple.

Robin Dibble, Optimal Audio technical support engineer comments:

“Ideally, a noise level under 70 decibels in the restaurant is pleasant to the ears and ideal for conversations. Louder music will tend to have a negative impact on the comfort for the customers. Excessively loud music playing in the restaurant is a significant mood spoiler and makes it impossible for the customers to indulge in a conversation.

For bars and pubs, the audio system should be able to sustain between 75 and 90 decibels comfortably, sometimes more. During the day background levels are mostly what is required to allow comfortable conversation. As the day progresses towards the night, venues will want to increase levels to build atmosphere and to allow music to remain at a comfortable level during busy times or become a significant part of the evening’s entertainment.”

Let’s summarise

The right music and a high quality, reliable, and easy-to-use sound system is a crucial ingredient to a successful hospitality venue.

When you choose an Optimal Audio sound system you are choosing a product that will work equally in the background or foreground and provide an ease of management that means you and your staff are focussed on your customers.

The Optimal Audio eco-system

Whether venue staff or audio installers, our mission is to make commercial audio products that are easy to use, affordable and sound great.

Optimal Audio offers a range of on wall, ceiling, and subwoofer loudspeakers that produce warm, coherent and rich sound. Designed by world-class engineers, they offer premium sound quality at a cost-conscious price point. The type of speakers required may be dependent on the type of business they’ll be used for.

Furthermore, our Zone controllers provides the foundation to deliver efficient, high-quality multi-zoned sound systems. When combined with WebApp you unlock the full potential of our loudspeakers via onboard EQs, speaker presets, structured time of day routines and so much more.

This is critical, not to just ensure the sound performance is at its optimum, but to also provide full flexibility for the venue for when maybe music starts and finishes in a given zone and at what the sound level is in those respective areas.

Flipside AV recently installed an Optimal Audio Zone 4 and ZonePad to control three audio zones at a modern café, bar and hotel called Bang in Wells.

The daily pressures upon hospitality staff are always challenging and the last thing anyone wants to worry about is a complicated sound system. That’s where Optimal Audio provides the perfect solution.

Zone 4 is a zonal audio controller with DSP providing everything required in a single compact unit to become the beating heart of an efficient, high-quality multi-zoned commercial sound system and features 4 line and 2 mic inputs plus 2 HDMI inputs for TV and video sound. It allows the installer to independently allocate sources across four configurable zones, such as a lobby, bar or restaurant, and each zone can be configured to do precisely what is required using the intuitive WebApp. This includes EQs, speaker presets, structured time of day routines and so much more.

In the case of Bang, Zone 4 was installed to control audio for three zones and once configured a ZonePad 4 was added to make end usability effortless. ZonePad 4 is an elegant wall mounted controller, providing users clear and simple access to the essential controls of up to four zones. It gives all users the confidence and access they need to operate the system and features a clean, slick intuitive touch interface, enabling selection, volume control of playback sources and microphones to be easily controlled across the zones of audio from one position. Controlling the sound system on the move is no problem for the venue staff either. The manager of the venue has WebApp pinned to home screen on the venue iPad, ensuring that changes can be made quickly and easily if needed.

Optimal Audio was the perfect fit according to James Heath Cooper, MD at Flipside AV:

“The unit was super-fast and easy to set up with just the right amount of control for the team to get the best out of the sound system. In terms of price, it’s spot on really and has some lovely value-added functionality like the HDMI audio inputs. The customer is very happy and finds the system effortless to use. It’s added a lovely vibe to the establishment.”