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As great as it is being in New York City, restaurants there offering a transporting experience always have an advantage. Designed to make guests feel as if they're on a sensual trip through the tastes of Asia, Tao has been a perpetual NYC hot spot since opening in 2000.
While the original layout was clearly a hit, Tao underscored its commitment to a total sound immersion when it tapped Essential Communications to improve on the original audio system and replace it with a flexible, high-powered sound setup. "Tao can now create audio environments with everything from MP3 playback to DJs," says David Schwartz, President of Essential Communications. "It's a cavernous space, and we did extensive work to effect a systematic overhaul of the audio system."
Tao presented Essential Communications with a non-stop atmosphere that placed special demands on the audio system. "This is a place that runs seven days a week, from 12 to 14 hours a day," Schwartz notes. "It's a very demanding environment for a lot of reasons. At any point the capacity of the restaurant can go from minimal at lunch to maximum at peak time during the evening, so the system has to sound good at low or loud volumes -- and the ambient noise gets loud in there.
"The sound is not background music, it's foreground. We've given management the ability to regulate the audio levels in five distinct zones and they're on top of that all the time, depending on the traffic flow. They don't want an automated system, they want to be involved so they can regulate the music level according to the flow of the restaurant."
Essential Communications also made multiple improvements to the system's original core equipment installation, fixing problems like overheating and excessive power consumption in the process. "We had to come up with a way to reduce the rackspace, which we accomplished by installing Meyer self powered speakers in some of the zones and taking the amp power out of the rack. One entire rack of analog processing gear was replaced with one Rane RPM88 digital sound processor, which features volume remotes that control the source and master level of the entire space, as well as giving each zone its individual level control."
By selecting Essential Communications, Tao, one of NYC's best-known transporting experiences escalated to an even better place.
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