Hard Rock Café arrives with d&b in Budapest
At the very heart of Budapest city is the Váci 1 shopping and entertainment centre. Originally built between 1911 and 1915 and one time host to the Budapest Stock Exchange, the building is a historic, protected monument and was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1987. As prestigious sites go, it doesn’t get much grander than this. After extensive renovation work it has been redeveloped as the central hub of Budapest's retail area. On 14th December 2011, the Hard Rock Café opened its doors to the Budapest public for the first time. Spread over four floors of the Váci 1 building, the magnet of the famous Rock Shop greets visitors as they enter on the ground floor and the views are what may attract people to the top floor. However, the main event is the restaurant, bar, kitchen and the performance stage which are all down on the basement level, boasting a capacity of one hundred and sixty people.
Géza Balogh from Interton Electroacoustics Ltd of Budapest explains the rationale behind the decision to use d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers, "The Hard Rock Café had already experienced the quality, flexibility and reliability of d&b audiotechnik products in many of their other buildings throughout Europe, so choosing d&b in Hungary was something of a no-brainer for them. They initially approached us in June 2011 looking for a complete audio solution for the entire building. We worked with the Hard Rock and Bravogroup Ltd. who were the general contractors for the whole audio-visual system; once the specification was agreed, Interton was responsible for the entire installation."
Providing a high quality audio system in a multifunctional environment can have its challenges as Balogh points out, "The venue itself is a rather small area, with a stage of approximately twelve square metres and is set within a difficult acoustical environment. Providing a loud and high quality sound without feedback under these circumstances was a challenging task, but with d&b products it was much easier to achieve an excellent result. We used C7-TOP loudspeakers from the C-Series range, giving us up to 138 dB SPL, supported at the low end by a couple of B2-SUBs and all driven by D12 amplifiers. For the stage, MAX monitors were chosen; the coaxial design makes them extremely compact which was an important consideration in such a tight space, and yet they deliver excellent clarity as well as high feedback stability."
To date there are now over one hundred and sixty three Hard Rock venues in fifty two different countries around the globe. Budapest may be one of the newest additions to the franchise but it is, without doubt, certainly one of the most impressive.
