Finland-"Each Ilona restaurant has five rooms,a bar,karaoke,a live stage room,a quiet room,and of course the restaurant."Perttu Pesonen is manager of the Ilona restaurant in Tampere.Pesonen is a former production manager in the rock and roll industry."We get a lot of demand from groups who want to play here because we make the sound good;the fact is music industry people come here to socialise and hear new bands at the same time."
The recipe is the work of Restamax management group;the largest independent restaurant chain in Finland they have over 50 locations nationally.The Ilona chain is a relatively new development,the first two opened in 2011,the Tampere venue being the first,three more are scheduled this year."Part of that success is the great sound,"said Pesonen."I f you provide the quality in everything you do,food,drinks,ambience,music,then people will value that and come again and again.We installed a selection of loudspeakers from the new d&b audiotechnik White range after a period experiencing the response to their systems by renting in d&b from Akun Tehdas."
Akun Tehdas is arguably the largest and certainly one of the most influential equipment rental houses in Finland.
"We initially designed an installation system using d&b E-Series loudspeakers,"explained Tero Hölttäfrom msonic the d&b distributor for Finland."Generally the ceiling height is 3.5m and each room requires a certain degree of acoustic isolation from the others.E-Series was the ideal choice for physical size,pattern control and power.
"I specified E0,E6 and E8 with J-SUBs.Then there was a delay in the programme which coincided with the launch of the new d&b White range.The White range feature set was very attractive to the Restamax interior designers,and Perttu was more than confident enough in the brand reputation of d&b to know this range of loudspeakers would perform equally as well as E-Series if properly implemented."Hölttäredrew his design and specified the stand-alone 5S,8S and 10S loudspeakers along with the arrayable 12A loudspeaker,"I had never heard these cabinets but checked the technical data,and then consulted d&b Application Support in Germany."
The Application Support department signed off on Hölttä's design and a few weeks later Jesse Tikkala who runs the installation company Restasähköwas fitting cabinets to walls and made all audio,lighting and other electrical installations."I have the technical contract for all the Restamax venues and had heard rented in d&b Q-Series systems being used at several of their night clubs.They performed just as well as what I'd been used to hearing from their more mobile oriented cousins from the Black range."
