Sound Solutions was the successful bidder for the upgrade of the Matsqui Recreation Centre. As with many older buildings, there were several ‘layers’ of sound systems, ranging from the early 1980s to more recent equipment that was about 10 years old. A number of pieces of equipment had failed, and as is typical of some installations, the system was not user friendly:
With the push of one button, the sound system could be disabled in almost any area in the building
The arena sound system consisted of some custom built bass bins, likely in the early 1980s, in which both woofers were blown. The mid-high speakers were placed on top of the bass bins, firing right across the arena to the spectator seating areas, which left little coverage for the ice surface itself. The existing system had no accommodations for current connectivity needs like a Bluetooth connection to any zone, and the system required a central paging mic at the front office that could page throughout the building in case of an emergency.
More aging equipment that needed replacing!
We chose to install a QSC Core 110f digital signal processor, with new amplifiers, with a touch screen at the front desk admin area, as well as a second touch screen in the skate shop, to control the arena sound, as well as the arena foyer.
To save the available budget, we reused the existing wall and floor mount racks, taking a third unused rack and old equipment in on trade.
The front desk rack received an overhaul, installing the QSC Core DSP head end, with a new 4 channel QSC amplifier to drive the pool, lobby, fitness centre and hallways speakers. Redundant network switches were installed to remove the chance of failure of communication between the main rack, and the amplifier located near the skate shop, with the audio being fed to the remote amplifier via a local network, rather than traditional audio cables. Distortion and noise were reduced, and the wire runs were more economical compared to running analog cabling.
The remote wall rack houses a networked QSC amplifier, and a network switch to power the skate shop touch screen.
The skate shop also has a custom surface mount box, with rack handles installed to protect the touch screen from sharp skates from damaging it.
The box also houses a custom Bluetooth receiver so that the staff can send music from a tablet or phone to the arena and foyer.
The arena speakers were upgraded to two Community 15” 2 way models, with the speakers aimed strategically to provide optimum coverage for both the ice surface and the spectator speakers
A Factor input plate with a Bluetooth receiver was installed into the scorekeeper’s box and the Senior’s Centre for easy connection of a music or mic source.