Renowned within the LGBTQ+ community, the Palace Bar has been the delight of its party-hungry Miami South Beach crowd for more than three decades. Recently, it completed a thorough overhaul of its sound system including the installation of Infinite Audio Systems loudspeakers and Powersoft amplifiers.
Since opening in 1988, the Palace Bar has built a nationwide reputation for its exuberant drag brunches and live entertainment, with more than 1,500 guests visiting each weekend. With music at its heart, owner Tom Donall, was keen to update the audio equipment with a sound system that would reflect the energy of 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 bass need to be impactful and evenly distributed,’ explains Donall who has been in the club business for 20 years. ‘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. Having high-quality audio sets the stage for the festive energy customers find here, making sure each visit is a special experience.’
The venue comprises four areas – café, dancefloor, roof top and main outside area. Collaborating with Lord Toussaint, CEO of Miami-based loudspeaker manufacturer Infinite Audio Systems, Donall wanted to address every part of the venue. ‘We needed a system where we could tailor each area to the requirements of what we needed,’ he says.
Donall and Toussaint designed the sound system together, and went through the requirements of each area. This included ensuring that the outside areas would survive salt from the ocean, and be able to run the live show twice a day, seven days a week.
‘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,’ Toussaint says. ‘It’s a complex scenario because there is a live show performed on the terrace at the front of the building that sort of bleeds out onto the sidewalk and the streets. It’s a very high-energy show that uses a lot of microphones and house music tracks, but then it also needs to be distributed across various areas throughout the venue.’
The main challenge was to cover and synchronise all areas during the live shows – knowing that they are vastly different. To this end, Toussaint deployed loudspeaker systems individually for each area as if they were standalone systems, and then united them using a Biamp Tesira Server-IO for DSP.
The installation comprises 50 Infinite Audio Systems loudspeakers in the lower level, powered by ten Powersoft amplifiers, and 12 loudspeakers 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 serves: ‘We also have top level DJs performing here, and for us it’s easy to adjust everything,’ Donall says. ‘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 dancefloor, Donall and Toussaint specified a two-way horn-loaded Infinite Audio CDX 15V set-up for mids and highs, powered by two Powersoft X4 four-channel amplifiers. Powersoft’s X Series amplifier platform, combining audio quality with loudspeaker management, including fully featured DSP, in a single, lightweight unit.
‘I think without Powersoft X4s we couldn’t get what we wanted out of our 15Vs. There’s no room here for 18-inch speakers with very low frequency, so we did it with our extended response 15-inch systems, and they were up to the task because of how they’re driven,’ adds Toussaint. ‘Our lowest speaker load is a 4Ω load, but it makes a very big difference that these amplifiers are merciless across every brand. They do everything well, it’s all optimised, and we think it’s as important as our loudspeakers to build systems using Powersoft amplification.
‘Nothing that we’ve ever brought to our installations has ever been as robust and as reliable as Powersoft’s amplifiers,’ he adds. ‘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.’
Donell is also delighted with the result: ‘It’s fantastic,’ he says. ‘Seeing people leave the venue with smiles on their faces, already planning their next visit, is what it’s all about. And the sound really ties the experience all together.’
More: www.powersoft.com
