Sacramento's K Street Clubs Stay on the Cutting Edge with EAW Loudspeakers

Sacramento's recently opened K Street Clubs, located in the city's newly-revitalized K Street district, include three adjacent establishments: District 30, a dance club with live DJs; Dive Bar, a hip lounge with a classic feel; and Pizza Rock, a pizzeria and rock-and-roll-themed pub. All three clubs feature unique settings and spectacles; for instance, Pizza Rock's ceiling sports a Sistine Chapel-inspired painting of God giving Adam a Telecaster-style guitar, and Dive Bar features a 7,500-gallon aquarium where mermaids and mermen perform for customers. Managing partner of the clubs, George Karpaty, approached frequent collaborator Michael Lacina, sound designer and contractor from San Francisco-based JK Sound, with a simple plan: to build the three best-sounding venues in Sacramento. Lacina again looked to loudspeaker solutions from EAW, while designing systems that matched each club's distinctive atmosphere.

"First, we began work on District 30," recalls Lacina. "I recommended some acoustic treatment, and Karpaty installed visually pleasing, sound absorbing suspended panels, or 'clouds,' on the walls and ceiling. The centerpiece of District 30's sound system is four EAW QX596 high-output three-way loudspeakers surrounding the dance floor. This is the first install of the new QX596 in a club environment, and the speaker design is a real breakthrough -- it is the best example anywhere of a tri-axial speaker in which three separate driver groups for highs, mids and lows all emerge from the speaker as one point source, on the same axis. The result is unbelievable sound density with crisp clarity, and the dance floor shakes with power."

Aside from the QX596's, other EAW units on District 30's dance floor include two SB528zP large-format subwoofers and a UX8800 digital signal processor. Elsewhere, four JF29 compact full-range loudspeakers and a SB250z medium-format subwoofer serve the bar area; four JFX88 compact full-range loudspeakers and a SB150z compact subwoofer are in the VIP area; two VR61 compact full-range loudspeakers cover the lobby area; and eight CIS400 ceiling loudspeakers are in the bathroom areas.

"Obviously, to some, District 30's system may seem a little over the top for a venue this size," Lacina states. "But part of our responsibility to the client is to provide a bulletproof system that will require zero maintenance. An earlier EAW system we installed for George at Ruby Skye in San Francisco has not had a single component failure in six years, working into the wee hours. He is expecting the same results for his Sacramento club and with the QX system I feel pretty comfortable that we delivered. This system can pressurize the room without ever running near capacity. That means the components are never being stressed. District 30 needs to keep the music coming night after night -- the place is packed and there are lines down the block -- so the system needs to be both powerful and ultimately reliable."

The other club's systems are also tailor-made to complement their unique feels. "The music concept for Dive Bar was originally an iPod bar for customers, where they could come in and play their own personal devices. In fact there is a facsimile of a giant iPod mounted on the back wall of the bar, which is really a monster iPod dock. But we knew from experience that anything could happen at Dive Bar, that they could set up a DJ and throw down a dance floor, and the system needed to be ready to handle that. So we spec'd the brand new EAW JF29-- it needed to be compact but powerful and have good directivity. Then the week of the opening they threw us a curve and brought in a dueling piano act, which was to be set up right in the middle of four JF29s. I was worried about feedback, so I ordered a feedback suppressor, but we never even plugged it in. The vocals sounded very natural from the get-go without a trace of feedback." At Dive Bar, the system includes four JF29s, two SB250z's and a UX8800 processor in the front lounge area; three JFX88s and an additional SB250z in the main bar/aquarium area; four JF50S compact full-range Loudspeakers in the game room; and eight CIS400's in the bathroom areas.

"Pizza Rock had to rock!" he exclaims, "so we installed eight JFX590 compact full-range loudspeakers. The 590 has been my favorite 15" two-way. The transition from the woofer to the three-inch compression driver is seamless, and the system is supported by 4000W of subwoofers. This system does really rock." Pizza Rock's system includes eight JFX590's, two SB528zP subs and a UX8800 processor in the main dining and bar area; two VR62 compact full-range loudspeakers in the club's brick pizza oven entry area; two VR61's in the front patio area; and eight more CIS400s in the bathroom areas.

As the clubs are adjacent, the sound systems from all three bars are connected via a Soundweb digital audio matrix mixer, so sound from any venue can be transmitted to any of the other venues.

Lacina notes that processing is also an important part of the systems' success: "EAW's UX8800 processor is a key component in each of the three clubs," he notes. "I think a good analogy is that of an electronic lens bringing the music into sharp focus. It's an extremely sophisticated equalizer that also provides sub-low-mid-high separation or crossover, and it serves to time-align the system and offers meticulous speaker management. It digitally removes resonance issues, present in all speakers, with precise filters, bringing the real nature of the music closer to the listener than previously possible."

Lacina sums up his preference for EAW: "I have installed many types of speakers over the last 30 years, but I keep coming back to EAW. Maybe it's familiarity, or more specifically, familiarity with dependability. When you have hundreds of club installations operating night after night, it's comforting to know that the speaker system will keep on pumping."