Newly opened, Jun’s Restaurant in Downtown Dubai describes itself as ‘a modern fine dining experience where the food is simple in presentation and massive in flavour’. While not part of its promotional pitch, its in-house sound is an essential part of the diners’ experience.
With views of the Burj Khalifa, Jun’s is headed by Chef Kelvin Cheung who specialises in the North American Asian cuisine the restaurant offers. It installed sound system, meanwhile, is the work of regional A/V specialist. Venuetech. Architect and Audio Specialist Ismat Assafiri, Systems explains that it is designed to deliver music to all main restaurant dining areas including an outdoor area, and needed to be flexible enough for a DJ to easily operate. Assafiri and his team chose Active Audio loudspeakers and four LEA Professional 704 Network Connect Series amplifiers to cover the space.
The Connect Series 704 is a four-channel amplifier with 700W/channel that blends seamless design with immense power capabilities. Part of the Network Connect Series – the world’s first IoT-enabled professional-grade amplifiers – intended for small-to-medium scale installations. The 704 features direct HiZ (70V or 100V) or LoZ selectable by channel. With three ways to connect, integrators can choose the built-in Wi-Fi access point, the venue’s Wi-Fi or use Fast Ethernet to connect to any local area network via Cat5 or Cat6 cable.
The restaurant is divided into three audio zones, two indoor and one outdoor – which presented some acoustical challenges. ‘It has high ceilings and reflective materials, so we needed to be careful when it came to speaker placement,’ Assafiri says.
When setting up the system, which includes Active Audio Vendome 5 loudspeakers, the team used the LEA Professional Web UI to make adjustments to the amplifiers until everything was balanced just right.
The LEA Web UI is LEA Professional’s browser-based interface, which permits local monitoring of every amplifier connected to the network from any phone, tablet or PC. In addition, it allows users to view the status of every channel on any given amplifier. Along with the remote-control LEA Cloud platform, the UI ensures the integrator is in control of the system at all times. For Assafiri, this meant simply using the browser on his phone with no need to download an app or software.
One of the restaurant’s requests was to have a flexible system that, if needed, would allow the space to function as a nightclub. Considering this, Venuetech’s team confirmed it was confident that the amplifiers from LEA would be flexible enough and have enough headroom to accommodate the future expansion without needing to add more.
‘The Connect Series amplifiers provide us with everything we need, from the intuitive user interface, the SPL headroom, to the ability to integrate with an endless list of loudspeaker manufacturers,’ Assafiri says. ‘These are one of the most multifunctional amplifiers we have worked with.’
Assafiri says that the restaurant scene in Dubai is competitive but ,with this system in place, the team at Jun’s are assured they can provide patrons with a feel-good experience and a place where customers come to ‘celebrate their big wins in life’.
