Freelance sound engineer Julian Zafra has logged decades of experience in live sound, recently finding himself working on the Milano jazz club installation project in Barcelona.

The club is one of the most prestigious jazz venues in the Catalan region and beyond, and its sound installation help define its reputation, as well as those of its performers. Working with Spanish company Soinua, Zafra selected Tannoy VX 12HP loudspeakers for the main PA system and Lab.gruppen IPD 1200 power amplifiers for the job: ‘We had Tannoy DMT 15 in the studio when I was studying record engineering – after that, not many monitors have satisfied me as much as Tannoy,’ he says. ‘As soon as I was aware that they did professional loudspeaker PA systems, I didn’t hesitate for one second to choose them for the Milano sound installation project. We had a very short timescale, as the owner wanted everything ready for a big jazz festival in the city. Thanks to the great service from Soinua, we managed to get everything installed and sounding great in time. The combination of Tannoy speakers with Lab.gruppen power gave this project all the necessary sound control and accuracy without the need for any extra sound processors.’

At the heart of the Lab.gruppen’s IPD platform is a latest-generation DSP engine equipped with up to a total of 40 real-time, multi-slope parametric EQs along with adjustable gain, input and output delay, and both high- and low-pass filters adjustable to any frequency. The DSP also provides extensive protection for a loudspeaker system, in the form of the innovative software-controlled Speaker Protect Limiter, configured with ease from within IntelliDrive Controller software. Harnessing all of this power is child’s play thanks to the IPD LoadLibrary, a collection of Lab.gruppen released presets – for quick configuration and optimisation of a wide range of loudspeaker systems, including Tannoy’s VX Series.

The system has quickly proven a major success with the club’s owners, players and visitors. ‘The neutrality and warm, natural sound of Tannoy speakers make them worth every single penny of their price,’ Zafra says. ‘The music seems to come directly from the stage at any point of the venue, without realizing it actually comes from the speakers. The systems sound superb, and radiation is very well controlled, giving an all-round great coverage.’