Sacramento, CA (November 14, 2018)—Evolving ever since it opened, Ace of Spades, is a 1,000-capacity club that hosts acts like Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Eat World and recently became Live Nation’s House of Blues Entertainment division. While it may draw name acts, the venue still faced some problems that many clubs deal with when designing a suitable sound system.
“Ace of Spades can be a challenging room,” says Kelly Cronan, the club’s FOH mixer. “The stage is closer to one side of the club than the other, and each side of the club has a bar where they wanted to keep the sound level lower for conversations…. We have a split-level floor and the stage closer to one wall than the other, so we need to have the sound accommodate that.”
Tackling those needs, the venue installed a Bose RoomMatch DeltaQ Array Loudspeaker system, put together with “the waveguides in place to keep the noise level down,” said Cronin, who added that “the combination of modules gives us a system that is clear, clean and articulate.”
The Bose setup is composed of eight symmetrical and asymmetrical modules (four per side), and a combination of six RoomMatch RMS215 and four RMS218 subwoofers for the low end. The system is bolstered with six RoomMatch Utility RMU208 speakers to cover the upstairs mezzanine and a pair of Bose F1 Model 812 Flexible Array loudspeaker systems as front fills on either side of the stage. The system is powered by 12 Bose PowerMatch PM8500N network-enabled amplifiers, providing 16,000 watts for the mains and 28,000 watts for the subs, all managed by Bose ControlSpace DSP processing.
The club was listed in Pollstar as the 36th most successful club venue in the world, which attracted the interest of Live Nation, which in turn acquired the club in 2016. “When I tell visiting sound mixers that it’s Bose P.A., I sometimes get funny looks,” Cronan laughs, “but once they work with it, most engineers are pleasantly surprised and enjoy the system.”
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