Fukushima, Japan, April 2012 – Spa Resort Hawaiians, a family water resort in Fukishima prefecture, Japan, had not long completed a complete refurbishment, including the commissioning of a QSC Installation Line Array (ILA) Loudspeaker System, when the terrible earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 wreaked havoc in the area. The resort had to close, but reconstruction work began almost immediately, and the ILA is now back in full service on the recently completed entertainment stage.

Japanese QSC distributor Onkyo Tokki Ltd (OTK) was responsible for the original ILA installation as well as the reconstruction work. The entertainment area at the spa, which hosts evening Hula dance and Polynesian live music events for the spa's customers, is located behind an indoor lido pool area, and is surrounded on three sides by two-tiered audience seating with a maximum capacity of 1000 people.

Prior to the refurbishment, the resort's management was unsatisfied with the sound of the original PA. Due to the expansion of the entertainment area over the years, the existing 14-year-old system no longer provided an even dispersal of sound across the seating area. The managers knew it was time for a system capable of achieving consistent coverage both laterally and vertically.

OTK recommended the QSC ILA as both the most efficient and cost-effective solution for the resort. As the ILA provides an impressive 140-degree horizontal range of coverage, no outfills or centre clusters were needed, further minimising cost and complexity. OTK decided to install 12 WL2082-i loudspeakers and two pairs of WL118-sw subwoofers. A dedicated SC28 system controller was chosen to optimise the performance of the system, in which the speakers were driven 4-way (3-way plus subs) by a combination of QSC PowerLight™ PL325 and PL340 amplifiers.

Installed in two arrays mounted five metres from the ground, one on either side of the stage and each consisting of six WL2082-i elements and a pair of WL118-sw subs, the stage sound system succeeded in reproducing on-stage sound with vastly improved clarity and presence, delivering it evenly to every seat in the house - even the rear seats on the top tier, which are around 30 metres away from the twin QSC arrays.

Following the earthquake, reconstruction at Spa Resort Hawaiians took just under a year. According to OTK, the goal of the reconstruction work was to restore the systems at the resort to the state they were in the day before the disaster, and this was achieved by the time the resort reopened on February 8, 2012. To the delight of OTK's engineers, when the structural works on the resort following the earthquake were complete, the QSC ILA and its constituent elements were found to be in full working order, requiring no repairs.