Hyde Park, London’s The Mandarin Oriental, between Royal Parkland and the fashionable Knightsbridge, offers an eclectic mix of heritage, traditional service, and contemporary flair. The hotel’s rooms and suites have been reinvented for the 21st century by internationally acclaimed designer Joyce Wang, while the addition of an award-winning spa and a Michelin-starred restaurant by Heston Blumenthal also add to the updated hospitality offerings.
The Aubrey inside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is an eccentric Japanese izakaya experience for locals and visitors from around the globe. Drinks are the heart of this izakaya, with Bar Director Pietro Rizzo’s carefully crafted signature and seasonal cocktails served alongside Japanese dishes.
With the goal of whisking visitors into an energetic culinary tour of a night out in Ginza, The Aubrey—yes, that’s ‘The’ Aubrey—prides itself on offering refined touches at every turn, especially with its ambiance and decor. Guests can saddle up to its distinctive bar for London’s first-ever omakase cocktail experience, where they imbibe unexpected cocktails and enjoy Japanese flavors and Asian ingredients. Live DJs perform late into the night on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and at weekend brunch service, adding to the vibrant setting.
As part of The Aubrey’s refurbishment, it needed a sound experience that would match and keep up with the vibrancy of the space. The venue wanted the very best audio system available, delivering a world-class ‘background’ music experience and a sound system that would be able to accommodate live DJ sets. The Aubrey attracts well-known DJs and is fast becoming an ‘influencer’ space in the heart of the capital.
Knektd, a bespoke audio-visual installation and designer, was invited to tender for this project by the prestigious interiors company BradyWilliams Ltd., one of the capital’s most sought-after design studios, which has worked with many top residential and hospitality clients, including Corbin and King, Harrods, CAPCO, British Land, Anya Hindmarch, Berkeley Homes, and others.
Knedktd was tasked with discreetly blending a high-performance audio system into The Aubrey’s new decor and naturally turned to L-Acoustics Creations to assist in delivering the right sound system required. Shaun Wilson, owner and Director at Knektd, sys, “The Aubrey’s vibe is high-end but achingly cool, and the interior design put some challenging requirements on achieving the performance required without affecting the final aesthetic of the main room or the individual areas. We needed high-performance loudspeakers discrete enough to blend with the interior furnishings, yet powerful enough to deliver the sonic escapism the brief dictated.”
Knektd chose L-Acoustics Creations’ compact X4i coaxial loudspeaker for the smaller areas and bays, along with the high-performance wall-mounted Syva colinear line source speakers for the large open area of the main restaurant. A Syva Sub, hidden out of sight, provides low-frequency reinforcement across the system and is built into the custom joinery to blend in with the interior design. The system was configured, optimized, and tuned for the space by L-Acoustics Creations and Knektd, with the entire system controlled by Crestron, making sure it is easy for staff to change things if needed. Pre-sets also cater to different times of the day, reflecting different moods.
Shaun argues, “There is nothing on the market quite like the X4i for delivering outstanding performance for their size. Within a 4-inch cube, the coaxial driver offers an exceptionally smooth response from 120Hz to 20kHz, with a maximum sound pressure level of 116dB. The coaxial driver configuration gives point-source musical integrity and exceptional imaging seamlessly across a very wide area in front of the speaker. They can be bracket-mounted or flush-fitted and ordered in any RAL color to match the venue decor.”
Set against the dimmed room decor and dark wood-stained ceiling, X4i are bracket-mounted rather than flush to aid directivity across five small sectioned-off areas of the venue to ensure consistent sound pressure, regardless of where guests may be sitting.
The main Syva loudspeakers are the backbone of Creations’ audio offerings for exclusive residential and high-end hospitality installations. Syva is a compact colinear source loudspeaker with stadium-level live sound expertise presenting exceptional coverage across a wide area, clear vocals with smooth horizontal dispersion, and powerful, articulate low-frequency performance.
In the main restaurant space, the Syva speakers are wall-mounted above table height, fulfilling the need for visual discretion. Their slim column format, back-to-wall mounting, and standard dark grey-brown color perfectly match The Aubrey’s warm, rich decor and opulent style. After constant dialog to ensure the final design hits every benchmark in aesthetics and sound, the result of the eight-month-long project at the Aubrey is another exceptional installation from Knektd and L-Acoustics Creations.
by L-Acoustics Creations
Published 27 May 2023