Eight Turbosound Aspect TA-500Hs and eight TSW-218 subwoofers were recently installed by Advanced Audio Technology, into one of New York's most highly publicized and recognizable night clubs - Duvet. The seamless arrayability of the Aspect Series delivers unheard of directivity to the dance floor.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: With an 8 x 15-foot aquarium filled with over one-hundred exotic jellyfish, thirty "dining beds" - each of which dwarfs a standard king-size - and arguably the hippest lighting and architecture of any North American night club, Duvet New York attracts the trend-setters of the city that never sleeps to near capacity nightly. In only two years, Duvet has established itself as the place to be, and the best DJs in New York were happy to spin for the throngs of beautiful people that collected on the dance floor. The only problem was that the same attention to detail that put LED lights on the sides of the jellyfish tank and embossed the Venetian painted walls with silver leaf failed to transfer to the sound system. In a place where an unusually high percentage of the patrons had washboard stomachs, the sound was flabby and weak - it had sonic love handles.

Duvet called in one of New York's premier design and installation firms, Advanced Audio Technology, assured that their portfolio of gorgeous work and passion for flawless sound was commensurate with Duvet's style. Under the direction of owner and chief designer Joseph Lodi and partner and head of installation Angelo Poulos, AAT designed and installed a top-flight system centered around eight Turbosound TA-500H and eight TSW-218 Turbosound Aspect Series loudspeakers and subwoofers. They completed the 26,000-watt system in just under four weeks in early November 2006.

Given Duvet's intricate and unconventional architecture, the two partner's main challenge was to design a system with flawless dance floor coverage without disturbing the room's sleek aesthetic. Directivity was everything, and after evaluating many suboptimal loudspeaker systems, Lodi and Poulos found the perfect solution.

The Turbosound Aspect Series is designed around the company's patented Polyhorn(tm) system, which comprise equal-path-length, multi-section waveguides that result in a phase-coherent wavefront. This phase-coherence allows multiple Aspect speakers to array seamlessly and to achieve heretofore unheard of directivity. AAT was able to cover the dance floor while minimizing reflections and unseemly comb filters.

Each of the eight TA-500Hs utilize a horn-loaded 15-inch LF, a 10-inch cone MF on a Polyhorn, and a 2-inch HF device on a Polyhorn. The TA-500Hs were positioned four to a side with the corner speakers facing in at about 30-degrees and all of the speakers pitched down at the dance floor at about 30-degrees.

"We were very impressed by the directivity of the Turbosound speakers,"
commented Lodi. "We were able to direct the entire frequency spectrum." But
directivity was only part of the story. "Nothing on the market that sounds
as sweet as the Turbosound Aspects can hold together at high volumes like
the Aspects can," he continued. "They're extremely powerful and clean."

Lodi specified MC2 amplifiers to drive the loudspeakers. Two E15, 1500-Watt
amplifiers power the 2-inch high-frequencies. Two E25, 2500-Watt amplifiers power the 10-inch mids together. One E45,
4500-Watt amplifier powers the 15-inch low frequencies. "The MC2s are
audiophile-grade pro amplifiers with sweet midrange and highs and nice punch
in the mid-bass," he explained. Lodi ran nothing below a 4-ohm load with
plenty of headroom to ensure that everything would remain controlled, cool,
and undistorted.

The dance floor at Duvet would have been woefully incomplete without thumping bass. To handle that task, AAT specified eight Turbosound TSW-218 subwoofers, also part of the Aspect series. "The TSW-218 subs are, by far, the tightest, deepest, and most powerful free-standing subs we have heard to date," Poulos enthused. Positioned adjacent to the dance floor, their output couples perfectly together in the very center of the dance floor. Two Crest Audio Pro 10001, 7000-watt amplifiers power the subwoofers.

With the speakers and amplifiers in place, AAT reworked the front-end of the system so that the full capabilities could be appreciated. Three Pioneer CDJ1000 CD turntables, two Technics SL1210 vinyl turntables, and an Allen and Heath Xone pre-amp mixer constituted an input system that New York's best DJs would be honored to work behind. In keeping with Duvet's aesthetic, AAT custom built a striking wooden console with a white finish and color-changing color kinetics inside to house the DJ equipment. XTA DP226 digital system controllers connected the front-end to the amplifiers with no passive crossovers, but with warmth that is seldom found in digital units.

"Overall, the new system is remarkably crisp, warm, and accurate - and the coverage is phenomenal," Lodi reported. In recognition, Duvet has been nominated for a Club Systems award, and DJs that have played there since the installation are raving. The socialites who people Duvet are more impressed than ever, however conscious or unconscious that impression may be.

SENNHEISER
Established in 1945 in Wedemark, Germany, Sennheiser is the acknowledged world leader in microphone technology, RF-wireless and infrared sound transmission, headphone transducer technology, and most recently, in the development of active noise-cancellation. Sennheiser Electronic Corporation is the U.S. wholly-owned subsidiary, with headquarters in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

www.turbosound.com
www.sennheiserusa.com

(PHOTO CREDIT: Kristopher Clark)