Award Winning Restaurant & Bar The 11th Floor install Martin Audio, Allen & Heath, Chauvet and DSPPA Audio.

The 11th Floor in Bedfordview is one of the best restobars in South Africa, the award-winning establishment with deep Italian ties and chic design needed an audio & lighting solution. A brand built on elegance and sophistication, this solution had to include some of the best brands in the world, Martin Audio, Chauvet DJ, Allen & Heath and DSPPA Audio were picked for this task.

Picking up a Restobar of The Year Award from the 2024 Luxe Restaurant Awards is no small feat, The 11th Floor is a Rooftop Restaurant & Cocktail Bar located in Bedfordview. Offering modern elegance served with some of the best Mediterranean flavours and renaissance charms. Established in 2021 by Antonio Iozzo and chef Kyle Marshall, Marshall who until today is the Executive Chef & Director at The 11th Floor. Offering the finest Italian Cuisine, with Live Music and a breathtaking skyline view to match, The 11th Floor is an elegant restobar, offering an upscale dining experience for its patrons.

To further emphasize their values of elegance and Mediterranean culture, the design & layout of the restaurant is chic, offering Live Music, such as Violin, Saxophone, Celo, plus much more. This is also emphasized in the Smart Casual Dress Code that is set. The whole presentation screams sophistication. When it was time to choose audio & lighting, finding a solution to match the vibes of this offering, picking Martin Audio for the PA, Chauvet DJ for the lighting, DSPPA for the ambient music and Allen & Heath to run the house, the results are nothing short of exceptional.

DSPPA Audio consists of DSPPA DSP8062B Wall Mount Speakers, DSP8064B Wall Mount Speakers with Power Tap, DSPPA DSP45511B Waterproof Column Speakers, and to run the speakers, they went for MP2500 & MP1500 amplifiers. The DSPPA Audio solution is to provide ambient and background music during the day and when there is no live music.

The AHM-16 was the perfect solution to control the audio around the restaurant. Allen & Heath AHM-16 is an Audio Processing Matrix, supported by a comprehensive ecosystem of scalable I/O, control and Dante solutions. It delivers a 16×16 matrix with uncompromised processing for single-room applications and smaller multi-room environments including bars, restaurants, shops and school halls.

Another Allen & Heath product used is the new CQ18T. The CQ18T is part of the new Allen & Heath ultra-compact digital mixers. With this mixer you get 16 mic/line inputs plus a stereo line input., there’s a pair of main mix outputs plus 6 outputs for monitor mixes and two headphone outputs are provided which can be assigned different mixes. It also features Stereo Bluetooth playback with dedicated input channel, 4 FX engines, 3 Custom Rotaries, 3 Custom SoftKeys, a Dual Footswitch connection, a 7” Capacitive touchscreen with associated rotary control, and Built-in Wi-Fi. The CQ18T will be used to run the Live Music Nights, making it the perfect choice, and its wireless control and monitoring applications from a Laptop or iPad allows the artists to perform without any worries.

No solution is complete without the main PA for the live music nights, the choice was Martin Audio Blackline XP12s. These are 12” Powered Loudspeakers featuring onboard DSP with rotary control interface, multi-function display for metering, control and function selection, three-channel mixer, Bluetooth® control and streaming option, & 1300W of Class D amplification. Martin Audio manufactures one of the best loudspeakers in the world.

To complement the décor and restaurant design, the team went for Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot, which is a 75-watt compact moving head. This innovative mover comes equipped with a colour wheel and moving head home position which allows smoother programming and eliminates the starting whip-around action that can be triggered by some programming looks. Convenient control options are also on board with a built-in RF receiver for wireless control using the RFC or RFC-XL optional remotes that provide an array of control options in the palm of your hand. You can also set, save, and recall one scene manually from the full colour LCD display. Project crisp gobos from nearly any distance with the motorized focus and tackle short or long throw applications with manual zoom.

The results of the audio and lighting exceeded expectations, the combo allows the space to channel the Mediterranean atmosphere and feel, with live music from Martin Audio Blackline and Allen & Heath CQ18T, the Intimidator Spots for lighting and DSPPA Audio for background music.