Retail, Hotel & Restaurant AudioRetail, Hotel & Restaurant Audio

A hotel typically needs the lobby, the restaurant, the corridors and any outdoor terrace on independent controls, because each one wants a different level and often a different source. A restaurant may want the dining room, the bar and the outdoor seating separated. A retail floor may want the shop floor and the fitting rooms handled differently.

Five-zone amplifiers such as the SA-100VCM and SA-150VCM cover most single-venue installations. Larger properties scale through the 250W and 350W models, or the eight-zone USB-800F.

Suspended ceilings take ceiling speakers, spaced closely at low taps for even coverage. Where music quality matters — a restaurant or a hotel lobby rather than a corridor — choose a coaxial model such as the CLS-585, CLS-885 or the 50W CLS-968, which reaches 55 Hz to 20 kHz and handles music properly rather than just carrying it.

Exposed ceilings, atriums and double-height spaces call for pendant speakers hung to a controlled height. Terraces, gardens and courtyards call for the garden speaker range, whose enclosures are shaped and coloured to disappear into planting.

Back-of-house areas, service corridors and stockrooms take plain wall mount speakers — there is no reason to spend on coaxial drivers where the system only carries paging.

Outdoors there are no walls to reflect sound back, so level falls away quickly with distance and one loud speaker is never the answer. Spread several garden speakers along a terrace or path at 8 to 12 metre intervals at a modest tap.

The garden range runs on the same 70V–120V line as the indoor speakers, so an outdoor area is simply another branch of the existing system rather than a separate installation. For open lawns or areas with real background noise, the 60W LD-301 with 94 dB sensitivity carries considerably further than the 25W models.

Covered areas such as verandas and walkways can alternatively use the water-resistant wall models — SYS-401, SYS-501 and SYS-601.

Most amplifiers in the range include Bluetooth, FM radio and USB or SD playback, which covers background music without extra hardware. Several add a remote controller, which matters in a venue where staff need to adjust level without going to the rack.

Where a single small area — a private dining room, a treatment room, a boutique unit — needs its own independent source, the MP-86 in-wall amplifier delivers 2 x 30W with Bluetooth and IR remote from an 86 x 86 mm wall plate, and the BT240 provides 2 x 20W of Bluetooth amplification for a local pair of ceiling speakers.