Thread: Restaurant audio System

Hi everyone,

I have found a lot of useful information on this forum, thanks to all contributors.
Unfortunately, the deeper and closer I get to my design, the more overwhelmed I became, especially when I see two conflicting "opinions".

Here are the requirements: My friend, a restaurant owner, has asked for my help to design and install a sound system like the one I have at my home. Here is what we agreed on:
- 20 speakers
- two zones (bathroom and dinning)
- quality stereo sound. This is very important to him because he has two other restaurants with lousy quality sound, due to either speaker and\or amplifier quality.

My home audio system is using the low impedance which may not be an option here due to the high number of speakers (or is it?) Choosing the 70v speakers with a 70v amp. is probably a good option, but I'm not sure which amp will provide the quality sound that is required here. I would appreciate if you can recommend some speaker brand $50-$120 and an amplifer up to $600.00. Thank you in advance.

You're probably a real nice person who wants to help, but since this is (part of) what I do for a living I'll admit that I'm not really that enthused about offering up the benefit of my experience when it will help someone avoid paying another professional for their services.

Sorry, but that's the way I feel and I'm not ashamed to say it.

Sammy,

I'll add on that I am decidedly not a professional but I have learned through a couple experiences and through being here in this community that the best thing to do is to tell your friend that you don't have the skills or knowledge necessary to do the job correctly. I don't have those skills or knowledge either, but I know enough to be able to say that based on the questions you are asking here that you are unlikely to end up with a satisfactory result. Offer to help him with his home stereo if you have a lot of experience and knowledge there, but if I were you I would advise him to find a qualified professional to design and install his restaurant sound system. If he has concerns about the results he got in previous restaurants he should show his sound contractor of choice those systems and explain what things about them don't please him so that the new restaurant system can be designed to avoid similar pitfalls.

Take it FWIW (i.e. not much)
Best of luck,
Loren Jones

Originally Posted by Loren Jones

Sammy,

I'll add on that I am decidedly not a professional but I have learned through a couple experiences and through being here in this community that the best thing to do is to tell your friend that you don't have the skills or knowledge necessary to do the job correctly. I don't have those skills or knowledge either, but I know enough to be able to say that based on the questions you are asking here that you are unlikely to end up with a satisfactory result. Offer to help him with his home stereo if you have a lot of experience and knowledge there, but if I were you I would advise him to find a qualified professional to design and install his restaurant sound system. If he has concerns about the results he got in previous restaurants he should show his sound contractor of choice those systems and explain what things about them don't please him so that the new restaurant system can be designed to avoid similar pitfalls.

Take it FWIW (i.e. not much)
Best of luck,
Loren Jones

Absolutely, we could recommend the best (or worst) amplifier and speakers in the world, but without the knowledge of how to design and implement those things into a working system, you're not going to get very far.

The FIRST question is why is he insisting on stereo? Trying to position speakers so you "get stereo" in all the seats is not so easy.

LONG before you start to suggest the number of speakers- you have to determine WHERE you can put loudspeakers and what the coverage area is.

This involves the particular height you have available. You many need more or less than your "20".

What does he like about your system at home? its loudness? The bass response? The clarity? or something else. Translating a home setup to a larger space is not always easy. Especially in the price range you are at.

The first step is designing any sound system is "What am i trying to accomplish with this system?" There are all sorts of different answers that would require different approaches to the system design.

And the word DESIGN-is the real key here. NOT hooking up speakers to an amp. That is the easy part. The hard part is trying to determine exactly what the customer wants-and how to fit it in his budget (if possible).

You can choose the best possible speakers-then install them improperly (ie not planning on interference issues) or not set them up properly and they will not sound any better than the really cheap stuff.

It is not always the tool-but how it is used that really makes the difference.

A friend of mine says "It's not the arrow-it's the Indian".

Ivan, Thank you very much for the reply... My bad, I should have cleared that information in my initial post. The restaurant has an existing audio system with 25v system. The clarity of the sound is not good at all, so when the music is playing, you can hear it but it's more like listening to an old mono system or an AM station.
I completely agree with you that the design is the foremost important factor before deciding on the system components, but in my case, most of the design has been pretty much done. The owner is only interested in newer and better AMP and speakers to replace the existing ones. The speaker location and count are providing pretty good coverage. Again, I'm only looking for recommendation on good 70v AMP and 70v Speakers. What brand to stay away from, what company provide good quality and warranty, etc... and as you pointed out, the installation is the easy part.

Originally Posted by Sammy elliott

- quality stereo sound. This is very important to him because he has two other restaurants with lousy quality sound, due to either speaker and\or amplifier quality.

Originally Posted by Sammy elliott

Ivan, Thank you very much for the reply... My bad, I should have cleared that information in my initial post. The restaurant has an existing audio system with 25v system. The clarity of the sound is not good at all, so when the music is playing, you can hear it but it's more like listening to an old mono system or an AM station.
I completely agree with you that the design is the foremost important factor before deciding on the system components, but in my case, most of the design has been pretty much done. The owner is only interested in newer and better AMP and speakers to replace the existing ones. The speaker location and count are providing pretty good coverage. Again, I'm only looking for recommendation on good 70v AMP and 70v Speakers. What brand to stay away from, what company provide good quality and warranty, etc... and as you pointed out, the installation is the easy part.

Sammy, not trying to pile on but taking your comments at face value you seem to be saying that quality is important to the Owner and the old system does not perform up to their expectations so the intent is to have a friend with a nice home stereo system but who has never designed or installed a system like this to simply replace the existing amp and speakers with different amps and speakers and to then expect that the result will meet their expectations. It doesn't even sound like you've identified any specific problems with the existing system or ascertained how what you propose will change that, much less done anything to assess if the results should meet their expectations.

What also stands out is that you've provided so very little relevant information. You have two zones, dining and restroom, but what does that mean, do the zones need to be able to have different content, independent volume control, both or what? Are the speakers surface mounted, in-wall, recessed ceiling, pendant mount or some other physical form? Where are the speakers located, for example if they are ceiling mounted then how high is the ceiling and what is the ceiling construction? What are the dimensions of the space and its acoustics? How is the system used and what type of music is played? What are the sources and how are they mixed or switched?

Originally Posted by Sammy elliott

Choosing the 70v speakers with a 70v amp. is probably a good option, but I'm not sure which amp will provide the quality sound that is required here. I would appreciate if you can recommend some speaker brand $50-$120 and an amplifer up to $600.00.

Again, we lack the information needed to even start to make any product recommendations but how did you come up with these budget numbers? Did you determine what you needed to do to get an acceptable result and what that would cost? Did the Owner tell you they had a certain budget they could not exceed? Or was it simply a guess? Have you checked out the existing cabling and its installation to see not only if it may be part of the problem but also if it is proper and legal and won't have to be modified or replaced?

Sammy, please read this article..
http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/3Times.pdf

it's about how churches often buy 3 sound systems before they get it right.. it applies equally to restaurants and many other situations as well.
you are about to become contractor #2b (re: the article) and in my opinion that's the absolute worst position to be in, because you're his friend and at some point he WILL realize that you didn't know what you were doing.

Jason

Except restaurants and bars often go out of business before getting to their third system.. :-)

If the restaurant already has a 25V system that is marginal, consider upgrading that with better speakers and a larger (more powerful) amp. Confirm that your source material sounds good, by itself.

If you don't know what you are doing, you will know more about what you didn't know by the end of such a project, for better and worse. If you friend is doing this to save money, he may get less than he paid for, as you learn on the job.

JR

Originally Posted by John Roberts

Confirm that your source material sounds good, by itself.
JR

Forsooth. Or, as Victor Borge might say, fivesooth.

As Brad said-What is ACTUALLY wrong with the current system?

If the problem is "up stream" then simply replacing the amps and speakers may not fix the problem.

If it sounds bad from the source-then all that the "better" speakers are going to do is to make the issues stand out more.

You say the "design" has already been done. Exactly what "design" is that-if the loudspeaker and amp choices have not been made.

Who was doing the "designing"? And for what criteria?

True designing is a lot more than "putting gear together". It is about designing a complete system that will work together well-provide the required SPL and Freq response and provide the required coverage.

Simply naming some "components" is NOT designing. Sorry.

Neither is using existing mounts or locations, I just helped with a convention center space that had to change some locations due to just poor placement. It takes a lot more knowledge than a forum or a board will provide you with, nor should any pro's (who really are the only ones who are going to be able to help) offer any advice as this is taking not only their time (which =money) but could be stepping on someone elses toes and taking their money for owning a business.

The system that is in place now is probably junk because it was done exactly as you are doing now. With little to no knowledge, and even less thought about how it should be done.

Originally Posted by Jordan Lahr

Neither is using existing mounts or locations, I just helped with a convention center space that had to change some locations due to just poor placement. It takes a lot more knowledge than a forum or a board will provide you with, nor should any pro's (who really are the only ones who are going to be able to help) offer any advice as this is taking not only their time (which =money) but could be stepping on someone elses toes and taking their money for owning a business.

The system that is in place now is probably junk because it was done exactly as you are doing now. With little to no knowledge, and even less thought about how it should be done.

Agreed

it is actually quite amazing that anybody who can hook up sound gear and get sound out of it is often considered "an expert".

And all the bad sound systems around are a standing tribute to this.

And even more amazing is how low the standard of acceptance is in regards to audio.

I am constantly amazed to hear some of the systems out there and to think that somebody-at sometime said "That sounds good to me-here is a check". There are simply so many system that NEVER worked-at least for the intended application.

Originally Posted by Jordan Lahr

It takes a lot more knowledge than a forum or a board will provide you with, nor should any pro's (who really are the only ones who are going to be able to help) offer any advice as this is taking not only their time (which =money) but could be stepping on someone elses toes and taking their money for owning a business.

The system that is in place now is probably junk because it was done exactly as you are doing now. With little to no knowledge, and even less thought about how it should be done.

The other side to this is that some people make a decent living fixing or replacing such systems. It sometimes takes one or two attempts with other approaches before people recognize the potential value in doing it right despite the associated cost.

I think of a certain dock bar with all weather speakers mounted on top of the roof over the bar with the speakers pointed 30 degrees helps up towards the sky.

Turns out they thought they were lobbing the sound over the bar to the outside seating area.

Originally Posted by Jay Barracato

I think of a certain dock bar with all weather speakers mounted on top of the roof over the bar with the speakers pointed 30 degrees helps up towards the sky.

Turns out they thought they were lobbing the sound over the bar to the outside seating area.

I've heard of that before. Because "edverybody knows" that gravity pulls the sound back down?

And the funny thing is-when their "idea" doesn't work-it just gets left alone-as if it will get better over time.

Originally Posted by Ivan Beaver

I've heard of that before. Because "edverybody knows" that gravity pulls the sound back down?

And the funny thing is-when their "idea" doesn't work-it just gets left alone-as if it will get better over time.

Well, the gravity does stay on, whether anyone pays the bill or not.

I remember taking a picture of it, but I couldn't find it. It must of been on an old phone that never got transferred to the computer.

How long was it till the speakers filled up with water!

Originally Posted by Jay Barracato

I think of a certain dock bar with all weather speakers mounted on top of the roof over the bar with the speakers pointed 30 degrees helps up towards the sky.

Turns out they thought they were lobbing the sound over the bar to the outside seating area.

Wow Ivan, the story of my life as a system designer/installer!
Some facts I've discovered:
-just because someone considers himself a DJ, they will be the first place owners go for system advice!
-Bad sounding poor designed rigs FAR outnumber good sounding systems
-I've had owners say "you hear better, nobody is that finicky about sound (-as we sit observing 45dB of gain reduction on the DJ limiters and a mixer that has solid-lit output meters and fuzz-tone distortion)

I have now been doing this long enough that I've seen the correlation between bad A/V and business longevity. It's subtle, but the ownership's attention to sound/light/video detail will reveal their similar attention to bar management, kitchen management and customer service also. If they are crappy at one, they are probably crappy with the others.
Unless such a place hands me large bar/food tab for free, I will not offer any "free" systems advice!

I originally posted this thread asking for advise on how-to install or pick a good 70 v audio system... I received good advise and some really useless ones. I'm an electrical and computer engineer which makes me pretty comfortable with the electrical and digital arenas, but not as much so with the audio, beside the home audio systems. As an engineer, I'm a big believer in the design and planning, hence, my original post. But when I read from the so-called experts discouraging big words (regardless if the sincerity) I became more determined to pursue my plan and find help elsewhere. which I did...

In closing, The audio system looks and sounds really great. It took me longer to put the plan together and order the parts, but it was certainly worth the extra days.

I'm sharing my restaurant design and hoping that someone can use it as a template. God bless.