Amsterdam’s Doka nightclub inhabits the basement of the colourful and eclectic Volkshotel, where it hosts the city’s most innovative DJs. Seeking something more nuanced than the conventional high-volume, high-distortion club PA, the 200-capacity hired distribution and integration company Firm4 Pro Audio to install four Danley SH50 full-range loudspeakers and two TH118 subwoofers.
‘The old system wasn’t meeting the high standards that Kerwin Groot, Doka’s chief sound engineer and Julian Chaptal, the club’s producer and programmer expected,’ explains Firm4’s Robert Pigeaud. ‘Kerwin reached out to us because he had heard Danley systems at Oosterbar and Marktkantine, and at regional festivals.
‘As part of our due diligence, we gave them several other options and performed a demo at Doka. The demo consisted of a pair of SM60F full-range loudspeakers and a TH118 subwoofer up against other “A-list” brands. Within five minutes, everybody involved was convinced that Danley was the way to go.’
The new system at Doka centrs on four of Danley’s flagship SH50s. They are arranged two per side, giving a stereo field with phase coherence on each side and depth and detail of the stereo imaging. Two TH118 subwoofers round out the low end.
One four-channel MC2 Audio Delta DSP 80 amplifier powers the SH50s, and one four-channel Audio Delta DSP 100 powers the TH118s. The Delta DSP 80 provides the modest front-end processing and loudspeaker conditioning required for the system. The DJ booth is state-of-the-art, starting with a hydraulically height-adjusted work surface. A Pioneer CDJ2000NXS2 digital media system joins a pair of Technics SL1210 Mk2 turntables via an Alpha Recordings AR9000 DJ mixer. A vintage Roland effects unit and a pair of Avalon VT747 tube ‘channel strips’ give the front end an ‘analogue soul’.
‘The SH50 specifically provides great fidelity and pattern control that extends down to surprisingly low frequencies,’ Pigeaud says. ‘Within the coverage angle, the magnitude and phase response are perfectly uniform. Really, the Danley boxes are like high-volume studio monitors, which is exactly what Doka was after. We even sold two systems to people who visited Doka and were blown away by its sound.’
More: www.firm4.nl
More: www.danleysoundlabs.com
