Café 601 AmericanAirlines Arena

Located along Miami’s scenic Biscayne Bay, AmericanAirlines Arena is home to the NBA’s Miami Heat basketball team while also serving as a leading venue for concerts and a variety of other attractions.

Its Café 601 at AmericanAirlines Arena, previously known as Bongos, recently received a substantial facility upgrade from the WR, Artec 300, and Artec 500 series catalogs of DAS Audio.

Jorge Arronte, manager of sound, is responsible for the various installed fixed and portable audio systems at AmericanAirlines Arena, including the facility’s computer systems for control and equalization. He discusses the Café 601 overhaul and his reasons for deploying the various DAS Audio point source loudspeakers.

“Café 601 has the capability of doing it all—from DJ’s to live bands,” Arronte adds. “Using our Dante audio network, we can connect a band or DJ with a localized sound system outside and pipe it into the space—providing an even wave of clean, robust sound with the help of our new DAS loudspeakers. For this project, we installed 10 DAS WR-6412DX loudspeakers, 15 Artec-508, 12 Artec-310.64, 8 Artec-510, and 3 Artec-526 loudspeaker systems. Low frequency support is handled using 4 Artec-322S bass reflex subwoofers. We started the facility upgrade last November and everything was operational for the opening in January.”

With projects of this complexity, questions inevitably arise. In this regard, Arronte was, once again, very pleased with DAS Audio’s customer and technical support services.

Arronte was particularly impressed with the Artec-508 for this job. “I love the clarity and full sound of the DAS Artec-508 loudspeaker,” he reports, “which is a relatively small box. There’s not much tweaking of the sound necessary to achieve smooth, intelligible vocals for both meetings and music reproduction. This is true of all the DAS loudspeakers, but that little guy, in particular, is one clean, powerful loudspeaker.”

“All through the design and installation process,” he said, “we always knew DAS Audio’s Miami-based support team was there for us. They promptly answered all our questions and brought demo product by so we could make informed purchase decisions for the various areas.”

Since the January opening, the new loudspeaker equipment at Café 601 and the adjacent Cabana 601 has received plenty of use and Arronte reports he couldn’t be happier.

“Now that everything is in place, we are very happy with our decision to include DAS Audio in our project. The sound is excellent, the facility is enjoying the audio, and the arena has received numerous compliments; both via email and straight from guests attending various functions. The AmericanAirlines Arena and our Miami Heat fans are enjoying the space completely.”