HARMAN Professional and KD’s Southern Cuisine Bring Upscale Dining and Entertainment to Oklahoma City’s Bricktown

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma – Bricktown, Oklahoma City’s entertainment district, just got a lot more entertaining with the opening of KD’s Southern Cuisine (www.kdsbricktown.com), an elegant dining establishment that serves up Southern culinary favorites for lunch and dinner – and when it’s late in the evening, transforms into a nightclub with DJs, dancing and live music, all served up through a HARMAN Professional audio system.

The design brief given to Norman, OK system integrator Pro Presenters, LLC and its President/CEO, Steve Patrick, was clear: the ownership group wanted KD’s to have an upscale look and feel, and “New York City club-level audio where we could really push some sound pressure levels.” However, to keep the open, contemporary interior design undisturbed, the sound system had to be completely hidden from view.

KD’s is divided into four areas – dining room, bar, private lounge and patio – and the system had to cover the sonic gamut from subtle background music to live bands and DJs pounding out the volume. In the bar area in particular the owners were insistent upon having dance club-capable SPL, but with so much emphasis placed on the décor, there was no room to hang loudspeakers, let alone large ones. There were also some unique architectural challenges and solutions – including a motorized glass window that runs the length of one wall of the dining room. When the window is closed the bar can get loud while the dining room maintains a lower noise level.

For the bar area, Pro Presenters needed a loudspeaker that could fit into the wall behind the bar while delivering the requisite volume. The company went with 12 JBL AC15 ultra-compact loudspeakers, inset into the framework and placed at a height and in locations to ensure even, unbroken coverage throughout the room. The bar has a floating ceiling, which included a cavity where Patrick and his team had room to install four JBL ASB 6112 compact subwoofers.

Adjacent to the bar is a small performance area for DJs and live bands, where four JBL VRX928LA compact constant curvature loudspeakers and two VRX918S subwoofers are mounted on each side of the stage. “These are perfect for this kind of application,” Patrick noted – “they’re small and don’t get in the way of anything but are full-range and sound really good.” Two more VRX928’s and a VRX918 are located in the private lounge.

The main dining room and two private dining areas (which can be combined into a larger private dining room for bigger affairs) required music that could go from a gentle background level to something louder. Patrick wanted to install loudspeakers in the ceiling but had to work around a number of large circular hanging lighting fixtures. However, the ceiling also had several openings in which additional LED lights were installed – and these openings were also large enough to accommodate 14 JBL Control 26C coaxial ceiling loudspeakers and four Control 19CS in-ceiling subwoofers. In addition, two Control 26C loudspeakers were placed in the ceiling in each of the two private dining rooms, and four Control 28 indoor/outdoor loudspeakers are mounted in the outside patio area.

The loudspeakers are powered by a total of nine Crown amplifiers, a mix of DSi 6000, DSi 2000, CDi 1000, CDi 4000, 280A and 180A models. “These amps just made sense for this installation – their onboard processing enabled us to easily tailor their frequency balance, and other parameters to the loudspeakers, subwoofers and room acoustics. The 280A works in conjunction with a push-to-talk mic in the kitchen so the backline workers in the kitchen can hear what’s going on up front, and the 180A is simply one of the best amplifier values out there,” said Patrick.

A Soundcraft Si Performer digital live sound console handles both lighting and sound for the stage and main dining areas. Patrick chose the Performer because “we felt like it was two consoles in one. One person can do it all – mix the sound for both rooms and control all the lights with onboard DMX-based scene recalls. It’s amazing how much capability is built into this console.” He noted that thanks to the console’s built-in reverb, compression and effects, it also eliminated a lot of rack components they would otherwise have needed in the system.

“The ownership group couldn’t be more pleased with the way the KD’s installation turned out,” Patrick concluded. “The system is completely unobtrusive visually, and perfectly suits KD’s dual requirement for a system that can play quieter music during the day and get everybody dancing at night with sound quality that rivals that of any nightclub.”

HARMAN designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, HARMAN Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 14,800 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.7 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2013.
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