USA - Located in the heart of Ocean Drive in Miami’s South Beach, the Palace Bar, renowned for its status within the LGBTQ+ community, has been serving up dining experiences for more than three decades. The venue recently went through a complete overhaul of its sound system, including 14 Powersoft amplifiers.
Since its first opening in 1988, the Palace Bar has built a nationwide reputation thanks to its exuberant drag brunches and live entertainment, with more than 1,500 guests visiting each weekend. With music serving as the lifeblood of the venue, the owner of Palace Bar, Tom Donall, was keen to improve the previous audio equipment with a sound system that would be capable of conveying the energy of the Palace Bar shows.
“Being one of the most well-known gay restaurant bars in the world and putting on a famous drag show, the sound and the clarity of the sound and the bass needs to be impactful and evenly distributed,” explains Donall who has been in the club business for 20 years and knows how important sound is to customer experience. “When the girls perform, they lip-sync, and we needed the best sound to give the punch and clarity to bring this energy that we do at the Palace. This is why having high-quality audio was crucial for us. It sets the stage for the festive energy customers find here at the palace, making sure each visit is a special experience.”
The venue comprises four different areas: café, dance floor, roof top and main outside area. Collaborating with Lord Toussaint, CEO of Miami based loudspeaker manufacturer Infinite Audio Systems, Donall wanted to cover every part of the venue, so each customer that comes in can hear clear, high-quality sound wherever they are. “We needed a system where we could tailor each area to the requirements of what we needed,” says Donall.
Donall and Toussaint designed the sound system together and went through the requirements of each area. The most important was to ensure the outside areas could withstand the outside elements, especially the salt from the ocean water, and that the audio system would be able to run the live show seven days a week, twice a day, while maintaining pristine sound quality.
“Tom wanted warmth, clarity, and fuller tonality, and sometimes those don’t go hand in hand. But we were able to give him the lot,” states Toussaint. “It’s a complex scenario because there is a live show performed on the terrasse at the front of the building that sort of bleeds out onto the sidewalk and the streets,” he adds. “It’s a very high-energy show that uses a lot of live microphones and house music tracks and it needs to work on the people, but then it also needs to be distributed across various areas throughout the venue.”
The main sonic challenge was to equally cover and synchronise all areas during the live shows – knowing that the areas are vastly different. To combat this, Toussaint deployed speaker systems individually for each area, as if they were standalone systems, and then united them as one, using a Biamp Tesira Server I-O for DSP.
The Palace Bar audio setup makes up 50 Infinite Audio Systems speakers in the lower level, powered by 10 Powersoft amplifiers, and 12 speakers on the rooftop, also driven by Powersoft. “The whole system is amazing,” says Donall. “The punch, the power and the clarity are what I wanted. It runs perfectly every day, and we don’t have to worry about it.”
It’s not only live shows Palace Bar’s sound system caters to, Donall adds: “We also have top level DJs performing here, and for us it’s easy to adjust everything. We have an on/off switch for the areas we don’t use all the time and can also control the microphone volume levels.”
At the main stage and interior dance floor, Donall and Toussaint specified a two-way horn-driven Infinite Audio CDX 15V setup for mids and highs, powered by two Powersoft X4 four-channel amplifiers. Powersoft’s X Series amplifier platform, designed for both touring and install applications, combines superb audio quality with complete loudspeaker management, including a fully featured DSP, in a single, lightweight unit.
“Nothing that we’ve ever brought to our installations has ever been as robust and as reliable as Powersoft’s amplifiers,” adds Toussaint. “This is why for us it’s a win across the board. Sound quality, reliability, effectiveness, and rack space efficiency – it all works together. The support of Powersoft’s team, especially senior sales manager Rick Woida, has been invaluable in this installation.”
