BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 2012: Mastro’s stands among the nation’s premier steak and seafood houses, and its Beverly Hills location is one of its most celebrated. In fact, business was so brisk that the management decided to expand upward, literally. After renovating the third floor of its North Canon Drive location, Mastro’s Penthouse recently opened to offer drinks, sushi, and deck lounge dining. In addition, a private dining room with its own private balcony is sure to be well used by the restaurant’s upscale clientele. Mastro’s hired Clean Media – the same A/V integration company that helped create the ambiance in the first two floors – to design and install a video and audio system that would be consistent with Mastro’s exclusive aesthetic. Clean Media obliged, relying on Ashly Audio amplifiers with integrated Protea™ DSP to guarantee reliable performance with audio that is grilled – or rather, tuned – to perfection.
Clean Media is based in Scottsdale, Arizona and enthusiastically endorsed by well-known All-Pro football player, Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen. He loved the home theater that Clean Media built for him so much that he’s been helping to promote the company ever since. Not that Clean Media is really hurting for business; it is the go-to company for many of the country’s high-end chains, including Eddie V’s Restaurants (owned by Darden Restaurants), Oreganos Pizza Bistro, Twin Peaks Restaurant, and, of course, Mastro’s Restaurants.
“A little over a year ago, Ashly Audio sent some engineers to give our company a presentation,” recalled Dylan Vicha, the owner of Clean Media. “We shared all of the problems and issues that we had run into with other manufacturers, and they clearly articulated how an Ashly-based system would circumvent them. We tried out Ashly at the Red Revolver Lounge in Scottsdale, a club that I also co-own, and everyone agreed that Ashly delivered tremendous processing power, great user control integration, reliability, and ready technical support – and all at a very fair price point. Having now used Ashly for almost every project initiated in the last year, we’re confident that Ashly gear will meet and exceed our clients’ needs and will uphold the reputation that we have earned for building easy-to-use, great-sounding, and bullet-proof A/V systems.”
Inputs to the new system include a PC, Blu-ray, two channels of DirecTV, a DJ/band jack, a live music feed from the second floor, an MP3 input from the second floor, and DirecTV from the second floor. A Crestron audio matrix switcher selects and routes the inputs appropriately, with a Crestron HDMI video matrix switcher doing the same for the associated video inputs. A Crestron Series 3 control processor with wall-mounted touchscreens and an iPad interface give the Penthouse staff intuitive control over relevant system parameters. One eight-channel Ashly ne8250.70pe and one four-channel Ashly ne4250.70pe, both with built-in Protea DSP matrix mixer & processor, handle signal amplification and signal processing duties simultaneously. JBL in-ceiling loudspeakers cover five output zones: the bar, the restrooms, the dining area, the hallway, and the private dining area. Atlas weather-resistant loudspeakers cover the patios.
"The Ashly amplification and processing has been extremely reliable in all our commercial 70-volt applications, and the clients always comment on how easy our systems are to use,” said John White, project manager with Clean Media. “We have used Ashly both as a standalone audio control system and as an amplifier/processor integrated with Crestron & RTI control systems. The Protea DSP control is easy to set up, and we’re always able to dial in great sound in each zone, no matter what the acoustic obstacles are. We will be using Ashly Audio products in all our future projects." In the coming months, completed Ashly projects will include Federal Pizza (Owners of the Postino Wine Café chain), Hopdoddy Burger Bar (former owners of Eddie V's Restaurants), and the additional Oreganos, Eddie V’s, and Twin Peaks locations.