No Static AV operates out of Burbank, California for the benefit of clients local, regional, and national. One of its long-standing clients is famous chef Michael Mina and his diverse collection of restaurants around the country.
Whenever the Mina Group opens a new concept, it calls on No Static for its sound. Noted chef Michael Mina currently operates a diverse line of restaurants around the US, all equipped with Ashly Audio multichannel amplifiers, DSP and user interfaces by No Static. Recently, The Street in Honolulu joined the club, when No Static installed an Ashly ne8250.70pe combined eight-channel network amplifier and Protea DSP, paired with Ashly’s iPad user control app.
‘We’ve been working with the Mina Group for a while now, and recently did an installation at StripSteak Waikiki in the same area as The Street,’ says Eugene Gordon, CEO of No Static AV. ‘The Street places many concepts under one roof – a ramen noodle bar, a strictly-vegetarian counter, an Italian counter, a shaved-ice specialty shop and more. Everyone gets their food and then sits in common seating areas.
‘The Mina Group is now familiar with the kind of systems we build, and has come to appreciate Ashly’s reliability and easy user interfaces. We don’t have to go through any kind of sales pitch; we just say Ashly amp and control, and they know it’ll be good.’
In addition to handling the audio, No Static also gave every counter its own digital signage, which will facilitate turnover of concepts with minimal fuss.
Inputs to the system include a music player in the rack and several input pockets on the floor at strategic locations. The input jacks accommodate small bands or DJs. The Ashly ne8250.70pe performs all input processing, logic and user control routing, and loudspeaker conditioning. Output zones include the Tiki bar, the beer and wine bar, a handful of counters near the outside, and the restrooms. All the seating is covered across these zones. An army of QSC pendant loudspeakers provides the bulk of the output, with a handful of QSC in-ceiling loudspeakers where the structure requires them.
‘Since we’re in California and the restaurant is in Hawaii, reliability is paramount,’ Gordon observes. ‘Ashly’s gear is extremely reliable, so that gives me a lot of comfort. However, if anything were to go wrong, the fact that everything is contained within the ne8250.70pe chassis makes it easy for me to program a new unit here in Burbank, ship it to Hawaii, and have them swap it out. No problem. On top of that, Ashly’s five-year warranty gives them peace of mind. Of course, Ashly can safely offer that kind of protection because their gear has such a low failure rate.’
Gordon created a custom control app for the iPad using the Ashly Remote App. ‘We love the iPad user control,’ he says. ‘We can control source selection and volume in all of the zones. It’s perfectly intuitive. We also installed two Ashly WR-5 wall-mounted controls to serve as backup in case their network goes down.’
