Swan-E-Set Golf Club upgrade is par for the course

The Solution

New digital signal processor, updated connections.

New Prologue speakers were installed to supplement the original Bose speakers

Back in 1995 we installed a state-of-the-art sound system at Swan-E-Set, an upscale golf club in Pitt Meadows, just east of Vancouver. It’s always nice to see one of our installations still running strong, though it was definitely showing signs of age after 21 years of continual use.

We originally installed a series of TOA amplifiers, one per ballroom section (for a total of five sections), a room combining panel, and a couple of wireless mics, along with a cassette deck and CD player for background music. The banquet room had high 18-to-26-foot ceilings, so we had installed some Bose model 25 speakers to replace the original small in-ceiling speakers that sounded tinny. Over the years, some of the microphone jacks had failed, some amplifier controls had become intermittent, the CD player and cassette deck had long since been removed, and the only wired microphone was an entry-level no-name brand karaoke microphone that sounded less than ideal for speeches and wedding receptions. There was also no ability to plug in a smartphone or MP3 player to the sound system.

The rebuilt rack

We provided a quote to upgrade the main ballroom section speakers, while leaving the Bose speakers in the lower ceiling areas as-is. We recommended adding more power to the banquet room sound system, along with a Lectrosonic DSP unit to act as a microphone preamplifier, room combining unit, and the extensive signal processing capabilities within the Lectrosonics unit would give better sound quality overall to the banquet room system.

Our plan was to remove the sound system on a Monday, take the rack to our shop for complete rebuilding, and reinstall it on the Thursday, ready for that weekend’s weddings. We installed the new Prologue speakers and microphone jacks on a separate trip to ensure a seamless transition from the old to the new sound system.

We installed three Factor RVC-PRO mic and music input jacks, so that an MP3 player or smartphone could be connected in the ballroom. At the same locations we installed a ‘record out’ jack, so videographers could use the audio from the sound system into their video recorders, giving better sound quality than what the camcorder mics would pick up.
The audio rack located in a storage room off the ballroom was completely rebuilt with a power bar down one side of the rack, and a wire trough down the other to neatly route the sound system wires. A custom patch panel was made so music or mic sources could easily be routed to the left and right wings of the ballroom (Sunset and Sunrise rooms) along with the centre ballroom section. The new Prologue speakers provided significantly better bass response and volume in the centre ballroom area, while the Lectrosonic SPN1612 unit was set up with a real time analyzer to properly match all of the speakers to the room acoustics. A new QSC 250 watt-per-channel amplifier allowed higher volume levels before distortion, while providing more headroom for the entire sound system.

We replaced the aging lobby background music amplifier, installed five volume controls for the various zones of the sound system so that areas could be turned up, down, or off, depending on if a microphone was used in the restaurant area. The lockable Factor RVC-PRO plates in both the lobby and ballroom areas allowed users to plug in a mic and music source, while controlling the volume levels right in the ballroom without having to run back to the sound system rack.

We received significant positive reviews after the first wedding reception, with the banquet staff commenting that the sound system sounded significantly better than the 20+ year-old one had.