The 1,200-seat venue, which has hosted performances from the likes of Olivia Newton-John, The Temptations, Hall & Oates, Kenny Loggins, George Carlin and Chicago in the past couple of months, now boasts a stereo, four-way loudspeaker system with six V-Dosc cabinets per side. Additionally, a total of 16 SB118 single-18" sub cabinets are located down on the stage, and all systems are powered by L-Acoustics' LA 48a amplifiers.
Muzak senior systems consultant Daryl Ballou, who has worked with the Pechanga Showroom Theater and many other casinos in southern California through Starway Productions, tells how V-Dosc was chosen. "Starway Productions had been hanging another manufacturer's rig in the room for a while and Pechanga was actually thinking about purchasing it because it sounded good. However, some of the larger acts coming through were insisting on using their own loudspeakers, which meant we had to pull ours down, fly theirs for a night, and then put ours back up.
"After Starway Productions president Alex Sukov and I researched the question of what loudspeakers Pechanga should purchase, we told them that if they put in a V-Dosc system, they'd probably never have to pull it down because literally every rider in the world would accept it. So seeing that they'd save money on labour in the long run by not having to always swap out systems, the resort wisely chose to go with V-Dosc."
Once the new loudspeaker system had been installed, Ballou was even more impressed than he had anticipated. "Our previous rig sounded quite good in there, but I was amazed at how much better the V-Doscs sounded. After we put them up, I gave the Pechanga crew a couple of weeks to tweak things before I came back to critically listen. My initial reaction was that it was so incredibly accurate; I'd never heard anything quite so honest! And this system really cranked - to the point that the air almost couldn't handle any more level. But it didn't really seem quite that loud because it was so free of the distortion that people commonly mistake for volume."
Although most of the theatre is acoustically treated, a large glass lighting booth on the rear wall had previously been the source of many audio-related headaches. "Prior systems would splash that surface and bounce sound back into the room," Ballou recalls. "But thanks to the excellent directivity of the V-Doscs, we are now able to provide great coverage to the back row of seats yet avoid that reflective surface. This system is pretty amazing."
(Lee Baldock)
