Offering a wide range of modern Asian cuisine, Cato Singapore is one of the latest additions to Singapore’s renowned restaurant scene, combining a stylish dining setting design and live DJ performances. As the venue took shape, it became evident that the sound management for the upstairs bar and downstairs restaurant areas required them to be addressed both separately and collectively. The system also had to accommodate both background music and live DJs.

For project and installer Electronics & Engineering (E&E), the starting point was an informal conversation between E&E Sales Engineer Louis Ling and the venue’s Music Director, Arjun Singh: ‘They have been friends for a long time and were chatting one evening when Arjun told Louis that he was involved in opening a bar with a group of friends’, says E&E Marketing Manager, Dina Menon. ‘There was a requirement to split up and consolidate the spaces via effective routing, while being able to tune both areas uniquely in accordance with the speakers that were installed.

‘In addition to its attractive price point, the Symetrix DSP at the core of the audio infrastructure is easy to use and provides the appropriate amount of I/O and the ability to configure on the fly because it’s plug-and-play.’

In the finalised system design, a single Symetrix Jupiter 8 app-based DSP handles audio processing and routing across both floors. Inputs include a Mac Mini computer and CD player, with two Symetrix ARC-2e wall panels to allow system adjustment. The completed installation also reveals a strong commitment to top-quality loudspeakers, with ten EAW speakers and a sub in the bar on the second level, and six JBL ceiling speakers in the restaurant on the ground floor.

Singh and his colleagues report being extremely satisfied with the sound quality of the system, and that E&E is currently working on an expansion initiative: ‘We are looking at a design to route the audio back via a Dante Virtual Soundcard so that we can record DJ sets and also stream them over the internet.’