The Goodtime Hotel pool club wins back entertainment permit with the help of 1 SOUND technology.

David Grutman and Pharrel Williams opened The Goodtime Hotel in Miami Beach in April 2021, landing Grutman, whose ventures include famous nightclubs like Liv and Story, a key to the city. The $200 million hotel contains the 30,000 square foot Strawberry Moon restaurant, which includes the rooftop pool club area–the main attraction for the hotel. Immediately, celebrities were attracted to the hotel and DJs like Marshmello and Steve Aoki hosted performances at the pool club. However, due to the pool deck's sound system and lack of sound control, it accumulated 29 noise violations and several city citations from its opening through July, putting the hotel at risk of losing its entertainment permit and furthermore, closure.

Michael Larkin, The Goodtime Hotel’s attorney, insisted that the club area is a critical “economic” component of the project. “The Goodtime Hotel will suffer greatly if it is not able to have outdoor entertainment on our pool deck. It will cause our hotel to shut down,” Larkin said. Still, the hotel operators were called before the Miami Beach Planning Board in July to discuss the repeated noise infractions of the hotel’s outdoor entertainment permit, namely a condition that music should not be audible at the nearby Arcadia House Condominiums, located diagonally across from the hotel.

Looming, was a September deadline for a permanent solution, issued by the Miami Board. In the meantime, the hotel did what it could to minimize disturbances by turning its music “all the way down” and even utilizing hotel staff to walk over every day to the Arcadia Homes to verify the sound concentrations.

Committed to finding a solution, Grutman hired noise-cancellation and acoustic experts to determine how the pool could function as a club again, as originally intended. Groot Hospitality brought in Angelo Poulos, CEO of Anthem SSL Productions, who then contacted David Kotch, President of Criterion Acoustics, and Lou Mannarino, Designer of 1 SOUND to be the team to take on the challenge.

1 SOUND, a premium speaker manufacturer made in the USA, has created its catalog of speakers based on audio solutions that were not available on the market.

Together they proposed that the Miami Planning board agree on a decibel standard instead of opinions on what is “too loud,” ultimately allowing the install of a new sound system that would be 30 dB less audible on the street.

The design transformed into the exclusive incorporation of 1 SOUND speakers for the pool club, satisfying the need for high SPL for the parties, while relying on the cancellation and steerable qualities of the speakers and subwoofers.

C4i’s hung as pendents

Panorama in Mono+Stereo Mode for the cabana

For the main DJ booth, 1 SOUND’s Tower System was the optimal choice– (3) Tower LCC44’s for the top left and right, offered high SPL in a coherent 120° dispersion pattern, each unit containing (3) rear-facing 4” full-range drivers that make each speaker have 20 dB rear cancellation. These sit on top of CSUB610 subwoofers that were deployed in fully cardioid mode. Each left and right used (3) CSUB610’s next to each other to create natural coupling that gave an even more powerful and directed bass.

For the main bar, they focused the design on sound in proximity for controlled coverage as opposed to higher SPL for coverage that would risk unwanted sound spillage. Cannon C4i‘s, which have an extended low frequency, were implemented on pendants at a height of 8 feet under the bar’s ceiling.

In the VIP cabanas, Panorama MS34’s were used in mono+stereo mode with 100° conical directivity, enabling true stereo to be heard in the full width of the cabana from one source. A proprietary technology that only 1 SOUND has developed, that preserves true mono in its field and surrounds the listener with a left and right stereo image.

Tower Systems were distributed throughout the rest of the space, some SUB310’s and CSUB610’s in omni, but when placed in the gardens towards the roof’s edge, CSUB610’s were in full cardioid.

Lou Mannarino, Designer & Founder of 1 SOUND, doing final tuning.

“This design required a lot of attention to placing the speakers in proximity to the crowd and avoiding sound from spilling over onto the streets. But we still needed the club “adrenaline-rush” sound. That's where having 1 SOUND’s Towers and the cardioid CSUB610’s really became the ideal tool to work with for this design.” - Angelo Poulos, Anthem SSL Productions

This was a challenging project. Even though many acoustical solutions were discussed, this design was able to rely on the cancellation qualities of 1 SOUND speakers for success. The board was able to approve the installed audio design as it achieved diminished noise pollution.

“I designed these products for exactly this purpose. In my 40 year career, as a sound engineer, I would often run into roadblocks and there was nothing like this that existed. So it was really satisfying when I went to listen and do final tuning.” - Lou Mannarino, Designer & Founder of 1 SOUND