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FBT Lands in Lee’s Liquor Lounge

Honky tonks that have old-school authenticity are great. Honky tonks that have old-school sound systems? Not so much. Case in point: Lee’s Liquor Lounge, a Minneapolis mainstay, recently got a new owner who renovated the venerable venue from top to bottom. The traditional ambiance stayed, but the aged audio system had to go. That effort was guided by Dave Bartholomew, sales manager/project manager of Allied Productions & Sales in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Minneapolis, MN (May 31, 2016)—Honky tonks that have old-school authenticity are great. Honky tonks that have old-school sound systems? Not so much. Case in point: Lee’s Liquor Lounge, a Minneapolis mainstay, recently got a new owner who renovated the venerable venue from top to bottom. The traditional ambiance stayed, but the aged audio system had to go. That effort was guided by Dave Bartholomew, sales manager/project manager of Allied Productions & Sales in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

“It was a real challenge to figure out what to use in there for an effective, kick-ass sound system,” said Bartholomew. “I ended up using three FBT Verve 112MAs for the mains and four Subline 15SAs—two on each side; that’s FBT’s crazy power 15-inch subwoofer. I used the monitor version. They make a regular version but I didn’t want that because, while it wasn’t very deep in the room, it was very wide. And it wasn’t right for line array, either. The Verve that’s a monitor can also be used as a main, but it has the ability to be used on the ground and is a coax; the horn is in the middle of the woofer in this configuration; it kind of aligns everything. And since the coverage is 90 degrees, conical, it has a wide coverage pattern. By using three of them, left, center and right, it solved the problem.”

Project manager on the venue upgrade, Jim Pedersen, says the goal of renovations wasn’t to modernize the bar. “We wanted to be authentic, to keep the historic feel of the building,” said Pedersen, “but improvements were definitely needed. The floor was pretty warped, for example. At one point, we had eight guys just trying to remove three layers each of laminate and plywood, and all of the nails and staples in every layer. It took about four days just to get down to the original surface so we could put down a really nice, new 1/4-inch white oak floor.”

Pedersen says the new system made a big difference. “The sound is great,” he said. “You know, with the system we had before, I thought I was getting old. I would ask people, ‘can you even understand the vocals of the lead singer?’ Turns out, the sound was just really terrible. With these new speakers, customers who’ve been coming here for years, before we ever took the place over, are raving about the sound.”

Allied Productions & Sales
http://www.allied-audio.com

FBT
www.fbtusa.com

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