Overlooking the waters of the Motława river, Woosabi, a new high-end restaurant in Gdańsk, Poland, was recently outfitted by local sound company Offstage with a venue-wide sound reinforcement system driven by Powersoft amplifiers.
Although restaurant owners Jocki Koeffler and Diana Sadłowska had no prior relationship Offstage, they quickly identified the company as being a partner well-suited for this particular project. Przemysław Waszkiewicz of Offstage explains, “I showed them around Gdańsk so they could hear some of our other installations with their own ears. They were more than happy with what they heard, so we then went on to discuss their specific needs.”
“The customer was quite certain about what kind of system they wanted,” he continues. “One of the main goals was a strong low end, but they wanted to make sure that the bass wouldn’t spill to the upper floors of the building.”
The look of cabinets was important as well, as Waszkiewicz notes. “Instead of using black or white cabinets straight off the shelf, we decided to build them from the scratch and put the Woosabi logo on them, together with their slogan, ‘good sound, good vibes’, on the other side.”
The four main loudspeakers installed in Woosabi contained a forward-facing 10-inch coaxial driver and a backward-facing 6.5-inch driver, which created a cardioid-like effect in the bass range. “It was quite difficult to find a coaxial driver capable of producing good low end while also being able to cover 100 degrees of the restaurant at any one time,” he notes. “To avoid playing the music from just one direction, we placed 10 smaller speaker cabinets (containing a 4-inch driver and a ribbon tweeter) around the restaurant, which were divided into three 100V lines with different time alignments. A fourth line (also Hi-Z) was dedicated to ceiling speakers in the restrooms.”
Waszkiewicz decided early on in the process that Powersoft amplifier platforms would be the right choice to drive the new system. “We used a Quattrocanali 1204 DSP + Dante to drive the four cardioid main speakers, he says. “Each speaker needs two channels to obtain cardioid behaviour, so we also used one of Powersoft’s Mezzo 324A amplifier platforms for this purpose. Each one of the four channels of the Mezzo 324A was driving a 100V line containing a few smaller speakers with transformers. One of these lines was also used for ceiling speakers in toilets.”
Mezzo models offer the same performance characteristics as other Powersoft install amplifiers but are housed in a half-rack unit form factor. Two power ratings are offered with either two or four channels of output.
Further, all Mezzo models offer multiple analog input options, and the two-channel versions also have line-level outputs. “The advanced processing (including FIR filtering) offered by Powersoft DSP platforms helped me to get an amazing sound,” says Waszkiewicz. “It also allowed me to create cardioid behaviour in the low frequency range. I had to make the speaker cabinet and passive crossovers by myself, which was quite challenging, but I had less work with concerts at the time due to Covid-19, so I could give this aspect the care it required.”
Given that Waszkiewicz was familiar with both Powersoft amplifier platforms and ArmoníaPlus software, no additional tech support was needed during the installation. “Everyone at Offstage did a great job,” concludes Woosabi co-owner Jocki Koeffler upon hearing the installation for the first time. “We’re 101-percent satisfied with the system and the next restaurant is already planned, of course with Offstage speakers and Powersoft amplification.”
