Once a bedroom community for Chicago, the village of Bolingbrook, Illinois has
developed far beyond its suburban origins. While its close proximity to the
metropolis still plays a large role in its economy, Bolingbrook has created
infrastructure that encourages a sense of community and provides its 73,000-plus
residents with plenty of opportunities for recreation right in town. A good example
is the Bolingbrook Performing Arts Centre (BPAC), which provides a beautiful
outdoor venue for everything from local theatre to national music acts. Built sixteen
years ago, BPAC recently replaced its original sound reinforcement system with a
Danley Sounds Labs design that includes new Danley amps, processing, mains, and
subwoofers. Critically, the Danley system ably meets all of the village’s
requirements while costing less than half the cost of other manufacturer’s designs,
which allowed Bolingbrook to revamp the entire system in one fell swoop instead of
dragging the process out over several years.
“The manufacturer of the Performing Arts Centre’s original sound reinforcement
system went out of business, and we had used up the last of our replacement
parts,’ said Steve Dollinger, owner of Music Solutions, the local music store and pro
audio tech company that, having worked extensively with BPAC in the past, was
hired to help guide the village in the design, purchase, and installation of a new
system. “If anything else failed, we were totally out of luck! The village had to get a
new system. We received quotes from several well-known loudspeaker
manufacturers, but all of them were at least twice what the village could afford.
Thus, they all proposed multi-phase installations that would require multiple years.
That wasn’t very appealing because it’s hard enough to get funding once and
because it still left the village vulnerable with at least part of a system that was no
longer serviceable.’
The BPAC’s new system consists of mirror image left and right clusters, each
consisting of a Danley SH-96HO full-range loudspeaker, a Danley SH-69 full-range
loudspeaker, and two Danley DBH-218 subwoofers. “When we were testing out the
subwoofers, we got a call from the village office at the opposite end of the facility,’
Dollinger said. “We asked, “oh what, can you hear it?’ and they laughed and said,
“no, we can feel it!’ I knew we had hit a home run!’ In addition to the left and right
clusters, the BPAC now also has a tight pack cluster of three Danley SM-60F full-
range loudspeakers to serve as fill and as a centre channel.
Danley’s affordable package included a Danley DSLP48 digital signal processor and
seven Danley amplifiers: three dual-channel Danley DLA 7500 with additional on-
board DSP and four dual-channel Danley EDA 12000 amplifiers.
Once everything was installed, Doug Jones arrived with his calibration equipment
and proceeded to make the already-great sounding system sound even better.
“After it was up for a week or so, the facilities director gave me a call,’ Dollinger
said. “He told me, “we didn’t just hit a home run… we hit a grand slam!’ Everything
was crystal clear and all of the vocals that had previously been so unintelligible cut
right through the mix. All the instruments were well separated and easy to listen to.
Even spoken word got a very noticeable improvement. It’s been up a while now,
and I keep getting positive comments from folks around town. Bolingbrook has a
performing arts centre to be proud of.’
