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Alcons installed at Prestigious Florence Cavalli Club
Located within a deconsecrated 18th Century Florence church, the idea behind the €3m Cavalli Club has been described its by owner, Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, as "to let others into my world". When you realise that that this is the same man who has been quoted as saying "excess is success", then it becomes clear that everything about the club is designed to be the best. In other words, the ideal situation for an Alcons audio system!
Featuring a bar/restaurant and live entertainment, the club measures around 22 metres long by seven wide. As the building is listed and nothing was allowed to touch the walls of the old church, architect Italo Rota built the club within a freestanding iron structure. The main bar and circulation area is downstairs, with a smaller first floor dining area above part of the main space.
The audio system was designed by Pierluigi Pecchenini of Direct Field Engineering. He needed a system that sounded fantastic but was compact enough not to visually intrude on either the historic fabric of the building or the club's plush décor. To achieve this, Alcons VR8, TS7 and LR14 loudspeakers were chosen,
A DJ booth and small stage are located downstairs, the intention being for the stage to serve as the focal point of the sound. Two Alcons LR14 and a VR8 pro-ribbon cabinets are located each side of the stage, with two further VR8s located directly above at a height of 4.5m, covering the upper dining area. Two more VR8s are mounted on the ceiling above that area.
Two LR14B 2x 12" subs are ground stacked beneath the stage, while five TS7 twin 6.5" woofer + 1" soft-dome tweeter full range cabinets are distributed throughout the ground floor, three mounted on columns of the iron structure; the remaining two close to the club entrance.
The VR8s are powered and controlled by ALC2 amplified loudspeaker controllers and the LR14s by ALC4s: Mixing and overall system control is done by a Yamaha LS9-16 digital console, with the audio distributed via an EtherSound digital network.
"The VR8 / TS7 combination was meant to be used for background music, generally during dinner, and for cabaret," says Giordano Tieghi of Milan-based Head Room SRL, Alcons' Italian distributor. "For live performances, originally the two lower VR8 would be muted and the four LR14 would have taken over for the longest part of the room.
"As it has turned out, almost all the performances are DJ sets and so we have re-programmed the system, making it work as a whole for DJ sets. Overall it works extremely well and sounds fantastic."
"Roberto Cavalli is one of the world's most famous fashion designers and his designs are all about style, individuality and quality," says Alcons managing director Tom Back.
"Those qualities are also the bedrock of Alcons designs and so we are really pleased that an Alcons system was chosen for such a landmark venue."
13th October 2009
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