The Zone, Melbourne’s, newest and perhaps Australia’s finest club, features a themed interior that pays extraordinary attention to detail.

The main room is seemingly lifted from Easter Island, with hand carved replicas of those famous Moai statues complete with foliage growing over rough rock walls. The DJ booth consists of smoked glass, more statues, rocks and foliage. The bar doubles as a small stream with water pumped from one end to the other bubbling along under the glass top. In this sort of setting the mind can’t help but be transported.

Situated in the heart of South Yarra, The Zone combines extravagant interior design with leading edge visual and audio technology. Three of the first guys on-board were Jay Mic’A (audio/lighting technician), Michael Spektor (lighting and programming) and Paul Nicolaou from AVL Electronics (equipment supply and installation).

Having worked for some of the leading club manage-ment organisations in the UK Jay unhesitatingly specified Martin Audio for The Zone. Stated Jay, “The critical issues were positioning speakers to get the best coverage with the maximum direct to reflected sound, and using high quality components to provide the clarity and the impact without the pain! When you spend this much money on the concept, you can’t leave anything to chance when it comes to the the sound. I was very upfront in insisting on Martin Audio Wavefront as I’ve experienced just how good Martin and its technical support is.”

On the main dance floor Jay and Paul incorporated eight W3’s positioned in a giant ‘doughnut,’ — four in the middle in a tight circle pointing out and four on the outside of a much larger circle pointing in and thereby providing a continuous even stereo source for the dance floor area. To achieve the enormous bass impact are eight WS2A double 15in subs, forming a cylindrical base stack directly below the inner circle of W3’s with a small circular stage sitting on top for
poseur dancing.

At the perimeter of the room are 14 Martin EM15’s providing fill with two Blackline S15 single 15in subwoofers providing bass. DJ booth monitoring is courtesy of two Blackline F12’s with additional, delayed, F12’s covering the balcony areas.

Audio amplification is entirely QSC with a mixture of PLX and RMX Series models. An Allen & Heath Xone 2:62 presides over events in the DJ booth.

Elsewhere in The Zone two other dance style rooms are equally spectacular with a Bohemian harem theme in the Moser Room, and in the Gaian Room a visual dreamland, with projected images constantly moving around the walls. Audio is supplied in each of the rooms with Martin Blackline F12’s with two S15 subwoofers in the Gaian Room and two S218’s in the Moser Room. Controlling the audio
is a BSS Soundweb.

The Zone is already well on the way to establishing its niche in Melbourne with rave reviews about its extraordinary appearance and feel.