Volume restrictions and poor quality sound are contributing to the decline in the number of nightclubs, according to 2manyDJs’ David Dewaele.

Earlier this week it was revealed that the UK has lost almost half of its nightclubs in the past 10 years.

“Clubs are closing down worldwide, and part of it is because of the restrictions being placed on them,” Dewaele wrote in a blog post for NME, citing Switzerland’s strict 99dB volume limit.

“There’s some insane sound levels going on in Europe. Obviously the best ones will find a way around it, but the sound police are gradually taking fun away from kids.”

The “whole demigod DJ thing” and a lack of interest in building top quality sound systems are also to blame, he added.

“I have noticed one thing in the past 15 years that we’ve been coming to the UK, which is that in the beginning the sound was super important. You’d go to The End or Fabric, places where it was like, ‘Wow, they’ve got this incredible sound system’, and there was a passion for it. It feels like that’s something that’s been gradually lost in the UK.”

For their part, Dewaele says he and his DJ partner and brother, Stephen, have been trying to bring the focus back to sound quality with their Despacio sound system.

“It’s 60,000 watts, which is the equivalent of the Glastonbury main stage, but this PA is for just 1,000 people,” he said.

“If we were to use it at full volume it’d be deafening – you’d die. But if you use a system to the max, it starts to sound shit – when you have an incredibly powerful system and you use maybe 30 per cent of its capacity, what you get is this amazing headroom.”

Read his full blog post at NME.