 New York City is hardly
at a loss for quality restaurants. The city is teeming with dining
establishments offering a wide variety of foods at a wide variety of
prices in a wide variety of locations. All of which is to say that a New
York City restaurant has to go above and beyond in order to set itself
apart.
Chez Josephine—a
stylish French restaurant named after the eccentric 20th century
singer/dancer Josephine Baker by her close friend and adopted “son,”
Jean-Claude Baker— recently enlisted Bernard Fox in an attempt to
distinguish itself. Fox is an audio engineer whose next project is none
other than the Museum for the History of Recorded Sound. Though he
specializes in theatrical and museum sound design, Fox agreed to take on
the task of Chez Josephine.
The restaurant,
located near New York’s theater district, has cultivated a reputation in
its 16 years of existence for its artsy décor and live music. But in
order to thrive in a crowded marketplace, improvements are often
necessary. Jean-Claude Baker asked Fox to design a sound system
customized to the specific needs of his restaurant.
Baker’s most pressing
requirements for his new audio system were individual zoning and
invisibility. “Jean-Claude Baker is very concerned for his patrons,” Fox
said. “He wants to be able to make the music louder or softer at any
table.” With a piano player and vocalist on stage every night and a wide
variety of clientele at his tables, Baker found this to be an especially
important aspect of the system. Fox said that there was no problem
individually zoning the audio system. He installed 18 different speaker
runs and an extensive control panel at the bar that allows for different
volume levels throughout the restaurant.
The invisibility
factor proved to be more of a challenge. “The one thing that was
difficult was that Jean-Claude didn’t want to see any of the speakers or
wiring,” Fox noted. In a restaurant that spans two floors and is
decorated with thick red velvet and a number of mirrors, this type of
invisibility was not easy to come by.
Part of Fox’s
solution was to place the speakers within the framework of the windows.
Bob Bender of Hudson Marketing convinced Fox that TOA
H-3 speakers would be perfect for this
job. “I didn’t know TOA as a speaker manufacturer,” Fox said, “but their
stuff is generally very reliable.” He said he ended up choosing the H-3s
“because they have very wide dispersion. In order to get fidelity
through the drapes, I tried to reflect the sound off of the window
glass. If the dispersion wasn’t wide you’d get the sound bouncing off
beams. The H-3s are the widest dispersion, highest fidelity speakers I
could find.”
 The TOA H-3 Wide-Dispersion Wall-Mount Speaker has a
wide 140
degree horizontal coverage pattern.
The result was
excellent sound and effectively hidden speakers. But placing the
speakers in the window caused other problems and was part of the reason
Fox had to install what he jokingly referred to as “miles of wiring.”
Because Baker owns
the entire building, Fox had a little more flexibility in hiding some of
the other aspects of the system. He put the amp rack on another floor
and hid the Sony 200 CD jukebox (utilized when the live acts take a
break) behind the bar. Perhaps his most creative maneuver, however,
involved the console. In need of an unobtrusive resting place for his
Mackie console, Fox mounted it on a microphone stand and slid it under
the piano.
Having completed the
design for Chez Josephine that provides a high-quality sound system that
does not interfere with the restaurant’s decor, Fox acknowledged the
team that helped him implement it. He credited Joe Castelon with
engineering the distribution amp system and the duo of Dan Gaydas and
Evan Yavne with installing all that wiring.
In retrospect, Fox
feels that this was a very successful job. “Jean-Claude Baker has an
incredible restaurant,” Fox said, “and he wants everything in the
restaurant just so. It was a pleasure to work with someone who knows
exactly what he wants.” There’s little doubt that Baker reciprocates the
feeling of a positive working relationship between the two. Fox provided
Baker with exactly what he was looking for—an audio system that will
enhance the quality of the music in Chez Josephine without taking away
from the décor. After all, it takes a little extra to get ahead in the
New York City restaurant business. |
TOA
Installation Profiles
