Founded in 1994 by Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, actor Robert De Niro, and movie producer Meir Teper, Nobu has long been a global icon of fine and adventurous dining. The first Canadian location of the iconic brand in Toronto is part of the Nobu Hotel, Restaurant & Residences project, the latest addition to the city’s increasingly sophisticated nightlife scene. The 10,000-square-foot, two-level, 278-seat restaurant includes separate bar and lounge spaces, two private dining rooms, a sushi bar, and an outdoor terrace. And while the fish is fabulous, Nobu Toronto also comes with a delicious sonic ambiance as well, thanks to an L-Acoustics X Series professional sound system designed by local consultant Mulvey & Banani Audio Visual, integrated by The 192 Group.
“A venue like this is going to be more than a restaurant, so it has to have more than just a sound system,” explains Corry McGibbon, President of The 192 Group. “Throughout Nobu, everything is very, very high end,” he continues. “The music is a curated part of the environment, just like the lighting, décor, and food, so the quality of that music is as important as all the other design choices that contribute to creating the Nobu ambience.”
One of the primary challenges of this project was to integrate powerful sound into the venue’s architecture. “We landed on L-Acoustics – it is one of Nobu’s existing brand standards – because it blended in perfectly,” states Gregory Rushton, Vice President at Mulvey & Banani Audio Visual. “X Series are high-performance speakers in a very small package. There’s only a handful of manufacturers that capable of doing that.” The venue required even sound coverage throughout the cavernous space and it needed to be powerful enough to provide both dynamic background music and event-grade reinforcement for visiting DJs.
Nobu Toronto’s overall design reflects, says McGibbon, a maturing metropolis’ changing nightlife. “The vibrant nightclub community that Toronto was known for a decade ago has transformed into a more muted supper club and lounge scene,” he explains. “Higher-end restaurants are the linchpin of that market. Just as excellent sound was critical to the success of nightclubs, so it is for the current, restaurant-based nightlife. It’s a demographic shift, and the technology has to follow that.”
The L-Acoustics installation at Nobu Toronto features a distributed system of 22 coaxial X8 enclosures, one larger X12, and 25 ultra-compact 5XT speakers, plus a dozen ceiling-mounted SB10i subs, spread over two levels. Everything is driven by LA7.16i and LA4X amplified controllers.
The bar and dining areas are separated into multiple zones, and McGibbon credits the LA7.16i with helping the venue manage the complexities. “It gives us a lot of flexibility to attain full coverage, managing the quantity of speakers and achieving quality audio in all of the zones within the space,” he says. “The subs, in particular, add to the nightclub feeling, without overpowering diners.”
Nobu’s new L-Acoustics professional sound system delivers on the venue’s high-end ambitions. Initial feedback from high-end events, such the recent Toronto International Film Festival and Fashion Toronto, have been positive. “Nobu Toronto represents the next level of sophistication, and it achieves that thanks, in part, to the same kind of sound you’d find at the best concerts, which comes from L-Acoustics,” McGibbon concludes.
For more information on Nobu Toronto, visit www.noburestaurants.com/toronto/nobu-toronto.
The 192 Group and Mulvey & Banani Audio Visual can be found online at www.192group.com and www.mbii.com.
