Other than Murmansk in Russia, Oulu is the most populous city that are more northerly, with over 200,000 residents. The city recently saw the opening of Basso Club, a brand new 430-capacity nightclub.
It is the first use in an installed sound application of Genelec’s new S360 and 7382 high-SPL loudspeakers.
The owners of the club Teemu and Miikka Sulkala, were determined from the outset that their club would break the mould and had a simple aim: “We didn’t want to do anything that our competitors or other nightclubs have already done so many times. We wanted something totally new.
“We just wanted the best possible sound system. Most nightclubs in Finland don’t invest in the quality of the sound, even though they’ll spend money on other things such as interior design, furnishing etc. However, sound is often neglected with too few speakers turned up too loud – making it impossible to carry on a conversation. We wanted the best of both worlds for our customers – in other words we wanted people to feel that they could enjoy the music at the kinds of levels you’d expect in a good nightclub and be able to carry on a conversation with their friends without having to yell or use sign language.”
Basso Club installed a total of six Genelec S360s monitors, around the dancefloor supplemented by two 7382 subwoofers under the stage. Nine 4030 active 2-way installation speakers provide ambient sound around the rest of the club, and a pair of high performance 8030s act as DJ booth monitors. Teemu and the rest of his team are delighted with the results.
Quite simply Basso delivers the best audio quality in any nightclub, probably anywhere. Using studio quality loudspeakers in a nightclub hasn’t previously been possible because studio monitors have not been able to deliver high enough sound pressure levels.
Genelec’s famed neutral reproduction coupled with a short-term SPL capability of 118 dB, with peaks even higher, plus a long-throw capability delivers reference quality accuracy at listening distances of over 10 metres.
This results in Combined with Genelec’s new 7382, the company’s most powerful subwoofer to date, the S360 is a formidable contender for any environment where the emphasis is placed on premium quality high-SPL vocal and music reproduction in a compact form factor.
“We’re very pleased,” Teemu confirmed. “Some customers just come to grab a beer and examine the speakers, as they’ve never come across anything like it in a club. People really appreciate the fact that they can enjoy good music. We’ve set it up so that there are multiple S360s directed at the dancefloor – the result is that the music is loud enough that you can feel the beat in your chest, but you can still talk at normal volumes. It sounds unreal, but it’s true!”
In addition to compliments from clubbers, DJ Darude performed on the club’s opening night and posted on his Instagram account that he was ‘in heaven’ after his first soundcheck using the Genelec sound system. “It’s very cool to have a professional DJ praising the system as well as the clubbers themselves – it confirmed for us that we’d made the right choice,” concluded Teemu. “I’m very proud that we are the first club in Finland – and probably the world – to have a Genelec S360 system. We had faith in Genelec, both in the products themselves, and the people there who recommended the S360s for this application. The results speak for themselves.”
