Tribeca Grand Hotel, New York City

A trendy destination for daytime meetings and socialising by night, the hotel's centrepiece Church Lounge and Restaurant takes its name from its location, slightly sunken from the main lobby within the hotel's towering central atrium. Cool house sounds fill the area courtesy of Tannoy V8 and V6 speakers installed in a recent acoustic upgrade by David Schwartz of Essential Communications.

Schwartz designed the original sound system for the Tribeca Grand Hotel when it opened in 2000, before going on to introduce several upgrades over the years to suit the evolution of the venue’s various entertainment spaces. This latest upgrade represents the highest-level sound reproduction in The Church Lounge & Restaurant to date, as the space has increased its nightlife status with resident and celebrity DJs in residence from Thursday through to Sunday. "Over the course of time the Tribeca Grand Hotel's been open, its needs have changed," explains Schwartz. "When we first designed the system as the hotel opened, it was really more of a background music system, and over time, as they wanted to have more of a focus on music since it had become this total hot spot, we needed to bring music to the foreground. They needed a speaker system capable of reproducing a much higher SPL than what we'd originally installed."

Schwartz installed black Tannoy V8 speakers throughout the spacious Church Lounge, as well as the bar area just off the atrium, and V6’s in the Tribeca Grand lobby and restaurant seating areas. "We've had a long line of success with Tannoy products, and the V8 is just a great sounding speaker," says Schwartz. "It had the higher output level that we were looking for to even exceed the hotel's needs. We went for a one for one exchange, but every speaker we installed is bigger than the one that was previously there."

When working within such a carefully designed space as The Tribeca Grand, Schwartz assures that attention to aesthetics was top the list of considerations in the system design. Indicative of the hotel's modern minimalist design, the large triangular space is subtly sectioned off by dividers into eating, lounging, drinking and all-of-the-above areas. "Aesthetics are always a consideration when you're dealing in hospitality environments," says Schwartz. "You have to be very conscious of what the speakers look like, and the V Series are very good-looking speakers; cool with an industrial edge."

Tannoy's V Series range of speakers pack a punch in a compact footprint and due to effective acoustic matching among all speaker models in the line; can combine to provide even coverage in multiple spaces within larger installations. Incorporating Tannoy's point source Dual Concentric™ driver design, the V Series speakers can be mounted either vertically or horizontally. In the Tribeca Grand, all the V8’s and V6’s are mounted horizontally and so positioned as to amply cover each area as a dedicated space. Between the bar, lounge, restaurant and lobby, Schwartz installed a multitude of Tannoy speakers for a consistently powerful, wide-dispersion sound quality that's evident from the moment you step through the main entrance.-Tannoy