Blue Beach Club: Dine Dance, Repeat with MC2 Audio

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Blue Beach Club: Dine Dance, Repeat with MC2 Audio

Posted on: 8th August 2018

As with many venues on the islands, having an ocean-side location is central to success, and Blu Beach is located toward the north of Malta, in the resort region of Mellieha, which just happens to have Malta’s largest sandy beach.

Formerly a successful restaurant, the venue was reopened in 2018, and appeals to a chilled-out crowd who appreciate the stunning ocean views and proximity to the amazing beach. The restaurant heritage has not been forgotten, and significant indoor areas are open for dining, with regular live music in the week, from a variety of local musicians, with the emphasis on keeping things relaxed.

To step up the vibe at weekends and to attract more diverse acts and DJs the owners decided that it was time to invest in a bespoke installation, and turned to FutureTech for advice on what was the best approach.

Given the nature of the venue and the layout, it was decided that a distributed approach to the audio was going to be the best fit. This did not mean that the installed system had to be compromised with low quality ceiling speakers and poor amplifiers – by utilising small stand-alone cabinets and discrete subs, a powerful but subtle solution was realised.

Amplification was provided by MC2’s latest Delta Series amplifiers, which have been making friends all over Malta due, in part, to their unique features including the clever use of DSP and non-options in the line-up.

Jason Kelly, Technical Sale Manager for MC2 Audio, explains further “All of the DSP enabled amps in the Delta Series have an additional four channels’ worth of DSP that is available on four aux outputs. This is wholly independent of the DSP used for the power amp channels and can be used for feeding other traditional amplifiers or other Delta non-DSP amps.”

The entire Blu Beach system is driven from four Delta Series amps – two with DSP and two without. Whilst the amps can be fitted with networked audio, this was not used for the system, as all four amplifiers are in a rack together and there was no need for sending audio to other amp racks as with mammoth install at Uno Village.

Stefan Farrugia, who heads up FutureTech, explained there were still advantages using the combination of DSP and non-DSP models “By making careful choices in how we configured the system, it allows us to put parts of it in standby when not in use, so cutting down on power consumption, heat generation and noise. When the DSP amps are in standby, the processing is still running so can still control any external amplifiers connected. The system is in use 15 hours a day, seven days a week so this is real-life consideration.”

The system consisted of a Delta 40 DSP, and Delta 100 DSP, and one of each of the non-DSP versions, 12 channels totalling a substantial available power just under 30,000W. This might seem excessive, considering the size of the full range cabinets, but, as Stefan noted:

“This is a real giant killer – can play at low levels during the day and still sound like a hi-fi system, and then can be turned up at night to really get going with surprising power and depth!”