The Iconic Potato Head Beach Club in Bali Upgrades their audio to 1 SOUND

Potato Head Beach Club

Potato Head Beach Club Aerial View

The original Potato Head eatery in Jakarta was created with the mission of “Good times, Do Good,” innovating through design, sustainability, and cuisine. Since it has been ever-evolving, Desa Potato Head opened in Bali, Indonesia as an outpost 5-star hotel comprised of restaurants, a beach club with renowned DJs every day and night, and curated entertainment. Named one of the best beach clubs in the world by Condé Nast Traveller, the Potato Head Beach Club is one of the most iconic and notable venues on the island, with multiple boutique hotel concepts and a wildly creative lab reimagining waste into various design objects.

Potato Head decided to upgrade their beach club audio system and contracted Michael Boyle, an independent audio consultant, for the consultation and design and Sontastic for the system installation. Knowing that 1 SOUND was recently made available in Indonesia, the team felt it was the perfect audio solution for this versatile outdoor venue. Melodia recently became the 1 SOUND distributor in Indonesia, providing Boyle and Sontastic with a whole new line of innovative and premium outdoor loudspeakers, along with expertise and support for the product line. The team implemented 1 SOUND loudspeakers for the entire distributed system, which included the upper-level dining indoor/outdoor space, the main dance floor and bar, the lawn with daybeds, and the beachfront pool. The goal of the audio was to have a high-quality sounding, durable, and power-efficient sound system that can handle DJs every day, 10 am until 2 am, while not creating noise pollution for the neighboring hotels or beaches.

Lou Mannarino, 1 SOUND Designer, doing final tuning with Sontastic & Melodia Teams

Ian Johansson, CEO of Sontastic

This installation consisted of around 60 loudspeakers all built with stainless steel 316 A4 hardware and accessories. For the seated dining areas on the upper level and under the overhang, Cannon C5 coaxials were deployed for music. These Cannons have an extended low-frequency response, so bass is heard and depicted, resulting in the design not requiring subwoofers in those dining areas. For the main bar and dance floor area with VIP tables, two Contour CT212 and SUB2112 systems were deployed utilizing the Contour Rigging System. This 5-way system is capable of 145 max SPL, delivering club impact with a lack of distortion at high volumes, which lessens ear fatigue over time. The smaller, but still just as loud Contour, the CT28, is distributed in the rest of the space, mounted and aimed from the ceiling in a horizontal deployment as well as from columns in a vertical deployment using the CT28 Horizontal Brackets and the CT28 Wall Brackets. These are supported by additional SUB2112s. Transitioning from the open concept building out to the lawn full of daybeds are clusters of two CT28s and a SUB310 providing a long throw for the lawn. Seating by the beach and pool are supported with cardioid Tower LCC44s, SUB310s, and Cannon C6s. Sontastic was able to mount these loudspeakers to the palm trees creating custom mounts without disrupting the trees. The swim-up pool bar deployed Cannon C4 marine loudspeakers. Lou Mannarino, 1 SOUND’s Founder & Designer, worked with Sontastic on the system optimization when the installation was complete.

The main challenge of this project was the weather conditions that are unique to Bali. It is a small island of beaches and the weather is very humid and rainy. Ian Johansson, CEO of Sontastic, worked with 1 SOUND to make sure that every loudspeaker could be made with stainless steel hardware and accessories. Since 1 SOUND is a newer loudspeaker brand that is still building their catalog, they were able to push along the process of offering every loudspeaker they make in a marine version, consisting of stainless steel 316 A4 hardware, specifically for installations like this. Aside from the robust and durable qualities of the loudspeaker installation, Boyle and Sontastic managed to produce an audio design that is now more distributed with an impactful sound and unprecedented lack of distortion at high SPL, while not polluting the beach or neighboring hotels.

Installation Video