"Situated in the shadow of Cardiff Castle and the Millennium Stadium, new basement boutique restaurant, The Potted Pig, is immersing its patrons in a musical ambience served up by JBL loudspeakers powered by the very first Crown ComTech amplifiers in the UK.

Supplied by Sound Technology Ltd, the Harman Pro UK and Ireland distributors, a pair of new ComTech 4150’s were supplied to the restaurant’s installer, Chris Hooke of Total Sound Solutions, just five days after their release in the UK.

The venue is one of several bars and restaurants owned by the Chameleon Group, headed by local businessman Jahan Abedi — and it was as a result of carrying out maintenance work at one of the group’s other units that Total Sound Solutions were awarded the contract for The Potted Pig.

Knowing this was a premium restaurant with 63 covers, serving traditional English food with a French twist in a beautifully-converted bank vault, Hooke was happy to meet the client’s request for a high quality sound system with low visibility (due to the restricted ceiling height).

He was also delighted that the contract coincided with the arrival of the new ComTechs.

“We were relieved to receive them in time,” he confirmed. “This is a new generation installation amp with strong ‘green’ credentials. When it is not being used, and cannot detect a signal, it automatically powers down.”

In fact energy efficiency is an integral part of ComTech’s pioneering DriveCore™ technology — which seamlessly integrates the amplifier drive stage into the power output stage fusing everything into a chip the size of a five pence piece.

The new four-stage universal power supply adapts to operating demands to assure peak efficiency, limiting power consumption to less than 1W when not in use. And because it’s over 90% efficient, no cooling fan is required, resulting in ultra-quiet operation.

Although The Potted Pig has been designed as an eight-zone environment, Chris Hooke opted for a pair of the four-channel ComTech 4150’s, outputting 150W pc into 8 ohms (rather than a single eight-channel ComTech 8150), explaining: “This solution provides us with redundancy should one amplifier fail for any reason.”

His other masterstroke was to recommend the installation of JBL Control 25AV loudspeakers which deliver an ultra-pure hi-fi sound, with individual zone control bringing an independent feel to the alcoves and main room. A total of 14 have been installed around the periphery and in the alcoves (including two in white mounted over the main central core). The system is fed by a CD player and there is also an iPod plug-in option.

Tim Corrigan. Operations & Business Development Manager, said that the building had been empty for around 14 years when the Chameleon Group took it over.

“We’ve designed it from the ground up and spent £300,000,” he said. “It’s been really successful and was recently rated No 1 on Trip Advisor.”

As for the music, he said, “Everyone wanted that laid-back New York sound; Chris said he had the perfect speaker, and in all fairness that’s what the Control 25AV’s are. The fact that every zone can have its own independent volume control is a real bonus — as a few guests have requested a quiet area which means we can turn off individual zones completely where necessary.”

As for Chris Hooke, he has already become a firm believer in the Crown ComTech’s. “This is a lovely, extremely natural sounding amplifier — the build quality is extremely good, yet they are small (1U) and lightweight,” he concludes."