LONDON, ENGLAND: Howard Payne and his newly created company, SPL Distribution Europe Ltd., hit the ground running with a high-profile installation of Sound Physics Labs SPL-runt loudspeakers at the 606 Club, just in time for the recent London Jazz Festival.
The 30-year-old club,
located in London's Chelsea neighborhood, is one of the best-known jazz
venues in Europe and has long been the favorite club for top artists on the
London jazz scene. The loudspeakers, designed by Tom Danley, are
manufactured in Glenview Illinois.
According to Payne, "The SPL-runts were just amazing, and exceeded
everybody's expectations. The guy who runs the place, Steve Rubie, who is a
musician himself and has owned the club for almost all of its 30 years, was
skeptical about whether two small speakers would cover what is basically a
very wide room. It's about 65-feet wide by only 20-feet deep, with the stage
area in the center on one side."
Indeed, the 606 Club's small size belies its huge reputation. "It holds
about 160 people when it's filled to capacity. It's a very difficult room
because it's in a basement, there's a really low ceiling, and sound-wise
it's a nightmare. But the SPL-runts deliver in a completely different way to
anything else that's out there."
The SPL-runts demonstrated their unique abilities perfectly during the run
of the festival, observes Payne. "They're so well suited for jazz, because
they have a wonderfully transparent, responsive mid-range, which is great
for horns and voices and they fill a room beautifully. As another contractor
who installs SPL products observed: you just hear the source, rather than
hearing speakers reproducing the sound."
As a result, he observes, the SPL-runts can offer an unequalled solution to
any room plagued by the sort of acoustical problems experienced by the 606
Club. "There's a bad standing wave in there due to the low ceiling and
there's a horrible delay in the room as well," he reports. "Even the
very
best conventional baffle-loaded speakers would need a lot of processing to
make them sound half decent. For the weeks trial, we simply ran the 'runt's
side by side with the existing system which consists of no less than ten JBL
and Tannoy speakers. We used a small Mackie mixing desk and a decent Crown
power amp plugged straight into the speakers. With minimal EQ and no other
processing they sounded terrific straight out of the box."
Another advantage of the speaker design was highlighted at the venue, where
the SPL-runts were positioned either side of the compact stage. Payne explains,
"One of the great strengths of the 'runt' is they're so directional with
such tight pattern control, you can put them really close to a performing area
and you don't get the kind of feedback problems you get with conventional speakers.
At one point, jazz pianist wunderkind, Jamie Cullum, was standing on the piano
stool singing flat out into a high gain condenser mic that was literally six-inches
from the speaker. Try doing that with any other cabs and you'd have feedback
nightmares!"
London's 606 Club becomes the first European installation
of the U.S.-based
Sound Physics Labs SPL-runt Loudspeakers.
The London Jazz Festival's program at the 606 Club featured a who's who of
UK jazz talent including: "The Godfather of British Jazz" pianist
Stan
Tracey; top female pianist and vocalist, Liane Carroll; Kyle Eastwood,
(Clint Eastwood's son) with his jazz sextet; and alto saxophonist Peter King
(who was asked by Chan Parker, Charlie "Bird" Parker's widow, to play
Bird's
favorite alto sax when it was sold at Sotheby's auction a few years ago.)
The festival was brought to a close by Ian Shaw, who was recently voted Best
Male Jazz Vocalist in the BBC Radio Jazz Awards and regularly tours the U.S.
"Highlight of the week was definitely Jamie Cullum, who now has the UK's
biggest selling jazz album of all time and typically plays stadium and arena
type venues these days," says Payne. "The 606 Club has a reputation
for
discovering and nurturing young artists, and it was one of the first places
that Jamie played as an unknown musician. He played Glastonbury Festival and
Blenheim Palace to huge crowds here in the UK and has been touring the
States recently. He really wanted to play a gig back at the 606 to say thank
you for helping him when he was starting out and to stay in touch with his
roots. It really was quite a night!"
The club's owner was so impressed with the performance of the SPL-runts that
he's now asked Sound Physics Labs to specify a complete system, Payne
reveals: "We're going to use the APB-2: Sound Physics Labs new high output
compact sub bass cabinet to handle the low end. The size of the venue
restricts us from using a conventional sized sub bass cab, so the APB-2,
which packs a huge punch for its size, is ideal. An entirely Sound Physics
Labs system from top to bottom, and the European debut for both the 'runt'
and the APB-2" Payne remarked, "I'm confident that this will give
the 606
one of the best small club sound systems in the world."
ServoDrive: www.servodrive.com Sound
Physics Labs: www.soundphysics.com
