Dining and fine-dining, these days, often look like both defining and defying trends. Enthusiastic diners have often find outing places charting a different genre altogether- mostly with their design and disposition, and sometimes with their ingredients. This is case of ingredients of its audio ambience that synced with the place’s plaque. This is Fig at Malacha in Delhi, whose audio environment is powered by Italian amplifying solution major Powersoft- brought to place by Gurugram-based audio solutions provider BBW Distributors.
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Mezzo, Powersoft’s small but powerful half-size install amplifier, is driving the multi-zone background music system providing the perfect soundtrack for Fig at Malcha, a new high-end dining experience in the heart of the Indian capital.
Fig at Malcha is an ‘eco-contemporary’ café, bakery, and bar offering all-day dining at Malcha Marg, near Chanakyapuri, New Delhi’s historic diplomatic quarter. The second Fig restaurant, after the original destination in Gurgaon, Fig at Malcha combines Japanese design with a Nordic lifestyle, featuring a curated menu based on high-quality, local, and seasonal produce from local farms, GMO-free meat, and cage-free eggs. It is also home to a Parisian-style bakehouse that offers fresh bread, pastries, and ‘farm-to-cup’ specialty coffee.
According to Gunbir Singh, founder, and co-owner of BBW Distributors, for their second café, the Fig team desired “warm, comforting, lush” audio – “more hi-fi than pro sound” – which would aesthetically complement the lighting, climate control, and ventilation systems to offer patrons “a pleasurable aural experience while in the space. Based on our experience within the food & beverage domain, we consulted with them and came up with a wish list of sorts. While they needed a multi-zone system with audio in all the public areas, they wanted equipment visibility to be minimal.”
For BBW, the natural solution was a Powersoft Dynamic Music Distribution (DMD) system comprising two Mezzo amplifiers coupled with a WM Touch control panel. Designed to offer the same reliability, build quality, and acoustic character of larger Powersoft amplifier platforms but in a half-size form factor, the flexibility and discretion offered by Mezzo means the amplifier has been the company’s “default choice for these applications for a while now”, explains Singh.
Using DMD, which takes advantage of the convenient dynamic routing capabilities embedded in Powersoft amplifiers, users can drive up to four independent zones using a single four-channel Mezzo amplifier. At Fig, the six audio zones are controlled using a single wall-mounted 4.3” Powersoft WM Touch screen, which offers “a level of convenience and usability which makes this the Mezzo solution a no-brainer”, says Singh.
For the installation at Malcha Marg, two Mezzo 604 A amplifier platforms, offering advanced DSP functionalities, remote control, and monitoring, were paired with 12 Amphion Argon0 and two Apart Kubo 3T loudspeakers, as well as a Silent Angel Rhein Z1 V2 Roon server, a Matrix Audio X-SABRE 3 DAC, Gladen Audio speaker cables and Furutech interconnect. Though the Mezzo 604 A also incorporates an integrated, state-of-the-art DSP, BBW designed the system around the physical attributes of the space, choosing to apply acoustic treatment to the ceiling rather than rely solely on signal processing – while the use of a Roon server, which uses machine learning to automatically play music based on Fig’s preferences, is believed to be a first in the region.
Across Fig at Malcha’s two floors, BBW split the Powersoft amplifiers into four zones each, for a total of eight audio zones – six dedicated to the ten Amphion speakers installed in the public areas, one catering to the washrooms and common space, and one left for future expansion.
The compact, easy-to-mount Mezzo is installed out of sight in an equipment rack on the café’s ground floor, with the understated Amphion speakers also contributing to keeping the visibility of the sound system to a minimum. Singh reports that the local Powersoft team, represented by distributor Acoustic Arts, provided valuable assistance through the install phase, “saving us some time” by helping to set up the amplifiers.
Manish Yadav, from Fig, says the new sound system “has completely exceeded our expectations, which were already high, to begin with. The sound quality is fantastic – we find ourselves listening to the system after hours a lot. It is also super easy to use; we have never had to call them for anything major, since it seems to run on auto-pilot.”
Yadav is also full of praise for the multi-zone DMD system specifically, noting that restaurant staff “now have the capability to control amplitude levels for zones individually. So if, for some reason, we have to reduce or increase the levels for a particular zone, it is simply a few taps on a very accessible touchscreen.”
“At Fig we have always done things differently. Music has been an important integral part of the Fig experience and we started exploring our options as soon as we finalised the new space,” he concludes. “The system has been a success in the way that it almost completely blends in with the Fig vibe. It is substantial but balanced, nuanced yet enjoyable – much like our offerings. We expect nothing but the best from the BBW team and they have delivered in spades.”
