In his own words, Bar Open owner Jon Perring tells us about overhauling the beloved venue's acoustic listening environment and completely rebuilding its downstairs house music sound system.
Our goal was to create an acoustic environment that makes musical listening enjoyable and conversation effortless.
Music has always been central to Bar Open’s ethos and live music has always been its beating heart, but after 26 years, a refit and overhaul of its house music sound system and room acoustics overhaul were well overdue. With the noisy compressor now tucked away elsewhere, the ‘tuning’ could start.
For all you audiophiles out there, here’s what we have been up to.
Bar Open
- One of Fitzroy’s favourite venues has a superb new soundsystem
- Check it out at 317 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
- Find out more about Bar Open here
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
A new sound system
The new sound system has at its heart a two-way Open Baffle design speaker system consisting of Eminence TeXtreme compression drivers (N314X-8) mounted in modern long elliptical Tractrix horn flares (Fatal Pro LTH142) plus two 15” SP Audience woofers (Bianco- 15OB350) mounted in each 50mm thick birch plywood baffle.
The speakers are powered by two classic class AB amplifiers, configured with an analogue active crossover (Xkitz) bi-amping a classic Technics amplifier (SU 7600) above 900Hz for the high frequencies and a beefy Yamaha amplifier (P1600) driving the 4 four 15” speakers for the bottom end. A Yorkville sub further underpins the ultra-low end. We made the decision to stay analogue where we can and not use any Class-D amplifiers.
The result is an ultra-clean, extremely low-distortion, audiophile listening experience with no speaker or perceivable room resonances. The advantage of an open baffle design is that they cancel sound to the side of the speakers. Unlike traditional box speakers, which generate resonances (nodes) in three axes – from floor to ceiling, between the side wall, and longitudinally down the room, Open Baffle speakers only activate room resonances longitudinally meaning that you can now actually hear the detail in the music and talk at the same time.
In the front bar
In the rear area of the front bar, the main speakers are augmented by a pair of rebuilt vintage Cerwin Vega D7 monitors. We have embraced high-definition streaming utilising a Wiim Pro Plus, which is capable of 192 kHz/24-bit stream rates with an impressive 106 dB SNR and a -92dB THD+N performance. This means that from the sound source to your ears, there is no qualitative weak link in the entire signal chain.
For vinyl, we have our two well-worn and trusty Technics 1200MkII running Ortofon cartridges and needles.
A continuing process
We will continue to improve the sound system and tweak the room acoustics. For instance, we are considering the use of a Class A amplifier to drive the horns, upgrading to a rotary DJ mixer and maybe including a valve preamplifier gain stage in the signal chain.
To demonstrate how supremely refined this new listening experience can be, I’ll plays my extensive record collection of contemporary psychedelic rock, 70s jazz-rock, Afrobeat, jazz funk, Chicago blues, ECM, obscure Australian, Scandinavian and Japanese grooves, Miles and Zappa on Friday nights.
Dr Graeme turns up regularly on Friday Nights to share his impressive musical knowledge and extensive record collection, bought on his numerous field trips to Mali, Senegal and Guinea. The bar staff are all music nerds, so you can expect Nautilus, Viagra Boys, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, the Reverend Horton Heat or Guilhem Desq from them. No EDM here.
Now, you would wonder: has Bar Open become a sort of ‘jazz kissa’, like the Japanese listening bars, joining a growing trend in some select venues? That’s for you to tell us. But we are really pleased with the results and are really proud of the critical listening experience we can offer, to both the audiophile critic and music fan alike.
So, drop in, have a listen and a drink – we have a new cocktail menu to embellish the sonic experience. We have made changes to our live music program. We have rescheduled our free gigs with bands on Thursdays and Fridays starting at 6pm.
There are band room shows Wednesdays to Saturday nights as per normal, with the legendry Make It Up Club in session every Tuesday from 8pm.
Midnight Circuitry / Synaptic Dreams
This is a free live electronic music set on Saturday night starting at 11pm. It features artists based on modular synthesiser platforms, and as far as we know, this residency is unique to Bar Open. Artists on rotation include Ruffles, Dom Alt, Justin Ashworth, Null Hypothesis and Puscha, with more to come.
See www.baropen.com.au for gig details.
This article was made in partnership with Bar Open.
