With some of America’s finest brews on tap, the Pony Bar in Manhattan’s famed Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood also provides beer aficionados with music from artists such as Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Phish and Wilco – now delivered though six Genelec 8030A speakers and a 7050A subwoofer.
Dan McLaughlin, who opened bar with a business partner in mid-April 2009, first encountered Genelec speakers while working at another bar: ‘It was the best sound I’d ever heard anywhere, just incredible clarity,’ he enthuses.
Then, after the first installed sound system at The Pony Bar failed to live up to expectations… ‘I said to my business partner, we’ve got to get Genelecs in here; we’ve got to figure out a way to get them.’
The bar’s beer menu features 20 craft brews and two hand-pumped cask ales that change daily. But taming the acoustics in the cozy bar was a challenge, McLaughlin admits: ‘There’s a lot of exposed wood and brick, and hardwood floors. It’s a very live room.’
After the original contractor talked the partners into installing a speaker system that failed to meet the acoustic challenges, McLaughlin started looking to replace it with Genelec speakers. A friend of a friend put him in touch with Tim Mitchell, a former recording engineer at the now-defunct Clinton Recording Studios, who recommended six Genelec active monitors and a subwoofer and agreed to install and commission the set-up.
‘We close at four in the morning, so Tim worked from four to noon,’ McLaughlin reports. ‘He spent the first couple of nights just running cable and then he installed the first speaker – and it was amazing. The sound quality coming from that one little studio monitor blew away the other five old speakers combined. The clarity was staggering.’
The bar’s regulars noticed the difference immediately: ‘Everyone said the same thing, from the younger kids to the older patrons that come here; everyone said the sound quality is the first thing you notice when you come in. You notice the warmth of the room now, the warmth of the sound. It’s really all-encompassing, not like the thin, tinny, acoustic nightmare that we had. I couldn’t be happier with the Genelecs.’
Having had his original speaker choice vindicated by his experience at the Hell’s Kitchen location, McLaughlin says: ‘Within the next six months my partner and I hope to be opening a second Pony Bar, and we’ll be using Genelecs in that space. We’re already planning to reach out to Tim Mitchell to redo the sound system there.’
More: www.genelecusa.com
