The location: Laz, in Finistère, a town near the expansive Chateau de Tévarez. Situated on the north side of the Montagnes Noires, and bordered by the canal that links Nantes to Brest, it offers exceptional views.

Le Point de Vue is a prosperous family-run business. Owner Nicole Gestin set out with a bar in 1969, then a restaurant and later a dance club. She has since been joined by her partner Eric Bourles, and the couple are assisted by close relatives, who are intensely involved in the future of this dance temple.

The music bar, positioned between the two clubs and restaurant, is open every day. The bar is run separately from the discothèques, but restaurant customers circulate freely throughout the complex.

In 1997 the entire complex was destroyed by fire just one week after a new club had been inaugurated. The reconstruction provided the opportunity for an overall study of the sound and light system, but the infrastructure was rebuilt.

While the main rectangular club (measuring 10,000 sq metres of floor space) looks more or less as it did in 1976, the ‘London’ is an extension of the original building and was first used as a restaurant before being converted to a dance club in 1980.
Hervé Morvan supervised the selection and installation of the sound system with recommendations from Joël Seveneant, the installer. The system had to offer definition comparable to that of domestic hi-fi listening, at the same time satisfying the different requirements of live and recorded music. It was a natural decision to choose Martin Audio.

An EM system is installed in Point de Vue’s two discothèques — the main space and the ‘London’. Each uses four EM 186 speakers, attached to four fixed poles at an angle to the dancefloor combined with four EM251 subwoofers, and is run as a tri-amped system (with three of the four frequency ranges active, including the sub-bass model). The trapezoidal EM186 is equipped with a 15in, a 6.5in and 1in compression driver, giving a 65° (horizontal) and 45° (vertical) coverage, operating over a wide band (55Hz-18kHz) while the 2 x 15in subs operate across the 38 Hz-120 Hz band.

A pair of EMX2A processors control the system in the main club (including two EM76’s providing infill sound at the rear of the club).

The Point de Vue doesn’t suffer from output limitations, but they do meet the legal requirements in hearing protection — 105 dB maximum acoustic pressure on the floor.

In future the club is looking at the possibility of sound delivery to the mezzanine areas from the stage, and even to the open terraces in summer; Martin EM15’s have already been proposed as being perfectly equipped for this type of application.

Today, while the main space attracts hardcore dancers, the London provides a much more diverse music programme … in the warm atmosphere of a typical English pub, equipped with an English sound system.

Adapted from an article by Alain-Marc Malga, that originally appeared in Sono Magazine, February 2004.