This dance party is powered by a 50,000-watt hi-fi

Five years ago, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and brothers David and Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax teamed up to create a PA system that sounded as good as an audiophile hi-fi. 

The Despacio touring show, which I attended Thursday night, is playing this Easter weekend in Queens, New York. It was born from this idea of an audiophile PA. It's designed to deliver great sound at what is essentially a massive dance party. Here's what it looks like.

The Despacio system consists of eight columns, each housing custom-built speakers and a huge rack of American-made McIntosh amps, an audiophile favorite.

The dance floor of the Knockdown Center in Queens is surrounded by these huge rigs for an 8-hour marathon session, run by the LCD Soundsystem-Soulwax trio.

Despacio means "slowly" in Spanish, and the idea behind the night is that all of the music is played on specially pressed 45s that are slowed down to 33 1/3 rpm. This, coupled with the sombre blue lighting scheme, gives the evening a Gothic atmosphere. One of the only real uptempo moments is when the trio cuts in 10 seconds of ABBA's "Dancing Queen."

At the start of the night it was Murphy's responsibility to get the reticent dance floor moving. Having worked with David Bowie, he paid tribute to the Thin White Duke with a slowed-down version of "Young Americans."

Almost attractions themselves, the huge venue hosts "thousands of bars" according to one chalkboard. It's more like 10, but the standout is a pop-up version of Murphy's The Four Horsemen restaurant. 

Like the rest of the Despacio system, the monitors in the DJ booth were custom-designed by the DJs themselves. They are powered by McIntosh amps, naturally.

With a mirror ball and glasses of wine starting at $11, the pop-up bar is another focal point of the night.

The Despacio towers use three separate sets of amplifiers to power the custom speakers: one set for bass, one for mids and one to power the tweeters.

Another custom design, the "birdhouse" features four tweeters and a horn in the center. The whole unit is able to be moved forward and back in order to "time-align" it with the rest of the system.

The made-to-order bass bins, with 15-inch woofers, slightly resemble the Klipsch La Scalas they replaced from the original system.

The soothing blue glow of McIntosh power meters.

About halfway through the 8-hour session, the lights finally came on. A little bit.

At the back of the rack you could see how one of the McIntosh MC1.2KW monoblock amplifiers was connected.

I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like a DAC? A digital audio converter in an analog-only system? Curiouser and curiouser!

Soulwax's Stephen Dewaele staffs the DJ booth.