Just opened, Mandrake has already established itself as in the Miami Beach dining/nightlife scene. The décor includes a life-sized gorilla to greet the patrons and bright fuchsia-colored lighting. Equally important for the restaurant’s ambiance, it also features a Martin Audio CDD sound system installed by Miami’s AVL Innovations (AVLI).
Asked about the audio component, AVLI’s James Reed explains, “Mandrake has several floors and multiple rooms. There’s a sushi bar in the front room where we used eight Martin Audio CDD8’s mounted on the wall along with four SX210 subwoofers built into the banquettes, then there’s a hallway leading to the main dining room with two CDD8’s.
“In the main dining room and bar, we wall-mounted six CDD10’s with four SX210 subwoofers also built into the seating. The program material is basically high quality background music earlier in the evening, which turns into more of a nightclub atmosphere with dining and dancing later on. There’s also a patio area with a garden that has four CDD8-WR’s and two CSX212-WR subs.”
Continuing the Martin Audio CDD theme, a lounge bar area upstairs has six wall-mounted CDD-LIVE12’s––four for the room and two positioned alongside the DJ booth on a small stage for monitoring, along with four CSX-LIVE118 subwoofers. There is also a DJ setup downstairs in a corner of the main dining room that can be played through the house system or in the individual rooms.
According to Reed, “powering is provided by Lab Gruppen and Biamp loudspeaker management, with Crestron control to tie the lighting and audio system together. We were also responsible for the sophisticated LED RGB lighting system that runs throughout the venue in the soffits near the ceiling and behind the bar to enhance the interior atmosphere.
“The designer, Mark Lehmkuhl, really has an eye for this stuff, he does the concepts and interiors for many of the hot spots on Miami Beach, and whenever he’s involved it comes out pretty cool looking.
“In terms of the audio,” Reed concludes, “the owners, Roman Jones and Aris Nanos, are absolutely happy with the sound system. They’ve been around the nightlife world for quite a while and were very impressed with the Martin Audio system’s coverage and audio quality both upstairs and downstairs.”
