Some venues carry their history in their walls. Studio Club in Torremolinos occupies the building that once housed Palladium, a nightclub that defined the Costa del Sol’s internationally minded nightlife in the 1990s.
Under new ownership, the space has been completely reimagined – and the ambition that once gave the building its reputation is matched, and exceeded, by the technology now inside it.
The result is a destination that has positioned itself as Andalucia’s premier music and art club: a two-room venue where the 1,500-capacity main room delivers the physical scale and impact of a festival system, while the 800-capacity Gallery Room takes the opposite approach – a focused listening environment where urban artists and DJs collaborate, artwork lines the walls, and the booth sits at audience level to close the distance between performer and crowd.
Delivering both under one roof, each space with its own sonic identity and the same uncompromising standard of quality, required the precision of L-Acoustics A Series and the expertise of L-Acoustics Certified Partner Levels AV.
“The owners already understood exactly what they wanted from the system,” said Adil Jaabak, who led tuning and commissioning for Levels AV. “They had worked with high-level sound systems before, so from the beginning they were very clear that L-Acoustics would give them the sonic character and consistency they wanted across both rooms.”
The connection came through Ibiza: Daniel Ball, Levels AV’s Owner and CTO, had worked alongside one of Studio Club’s owners on previous projects there, and that relationship shaped the technical brief from the outset.
The team carried out full system design, installation and final calibration in-house – completing the main room first, some three years ago, before returning to tackle the Gallery Room as programming for the second space developed.
The brief for the main room was unambiguous: create the physical experience of a large outdoor event – the weight, the headroom and the low-frequency impact that define festival culture – inside a permanent, controlled venue.
That is the standard expected by the international artists the club programmes, names including Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, Sara landry and Dixon, who arrive with exacting expectations of system control and consistency.
Achieving festival-scale impact in a space with ceilings exceeding six metres, significant reflective surfaces and multiple recessed architectural areas required careful design and repeated on-site refinement.
L-Acoustics Soundvision provided the initial framework, but Levels AV returned to the space multiple times to measure, adjust and calibrate in person before signing the system off.
“In the main room they wanted people to feel the energy you normally associate with an outdoor event,” said Jaabak. “It needed to feel big, with enough headroom and low-frequency power to create that atmosphere while keeping everything controlled.”
The main PA is built around three A15 per side, with two further A15 providing out-fill on the right. Delay coverage is handled by two A15 per side, supported by two A10 per side in out-fill. Six KS28 are installed beneath the DJ booth at the front of the dancefloor, with two Kara II positioned above as front fills.
The room spans two levels: balcony coverage uses two X12, supplemented by further X12 and X8 in distributed positions across left, right and centre to maintain tonal consistency throughout the upper tier.
At DJ position, two X12 on a rail-mount system accommodate one or two performers, with one SB18 per side for localised low-frequency reinforcement.
VIP and backstage areas are covered by two X8 per side. Three LA12X and five LA4X handle amplification across the room.
The Gallery Room is built around a concept Studio Club describes as the perfect fusion of music and art: a space where urban artists and music producers collaborate, where the booth is at crowd level, and where every design decision reinforces the connection between the DJ and the audience. That vision comes with specific acoustic demands. Where the main room is built for physical impact, the Gallery Room needs sound that rewards close listening – precise, enveloping, drawing the audience in rather than overwhelming them.
The room’s long, narrow proportions required dedicated acoustic treatment before calibration could begin. Only once the space had been treated could Levels AV tune to the standard the brief demanded.
“That room had to feel much more personal,” says Jaabak. “The idea was closer to hi-fi listening, where the audience feels directly connected to the DJ.”
The main PA pairs two A15 per side – one Focus and one Wide enclosure – with two SB15m per side flown behind the main hangs.
Two A10 per side handle delay coverage throughout the room. Beneath the DJ booth, four KS21 deliver low-frequency extension.
DJ monitoring mirrors the main room: two X12 on a rail-mount system, with two SB18, one per side, for localised bass reinforcement. Five LA4X power the system throughout.
Since commissioning, Studio Club has hosted major electronic artists every weekend. The venue itself promotes the L-Acoustics system as central to the experience it promises its audience – and the response from both performers and crowds bears that out.
“The reaction has been immediate,” says Jaabak. “Artists notice the control and consistency straight away, and the audience response has been very strong in both rooms. That tells you the system is doing exactly what it should.”
“For a club like this, each room needs its own identity while still delivering the same confidence in sound. Now both spaces feel complete.”
