Perhaps the furthest flung part of the Roman Empire, Club Marconi is a tribute to the Italian community in Sydney. From humble beginnings as a meeting place for Italians in the Western suburbs of Sydney the club now provides sporting, entertainment, educational and social facilities for a whole community of varying cultures and origins.

Set on 31 acres of parkland and playing fields, and including a 12,000 seat soccer stadium, Club Marconi is not only the home of State soccer club, Marconi Stallions, but a multi-facility sports and leisure mecca.

Inside the imposing club building are two auditoriums, six bars, four restaurants, a kid’s centre, a pre-school, a function centre, an entertainment lounge … and most recently the 1,050 capacity Casa Nightclub.

Consequently a supreme sound system was one of the first parameters Marconi outlined to Sydney’s leading AV contractor Total Concept Projects (TCP). TCP’s capabilities were already very well known to the club management, having worked with the company over several years to integrate an increasingly complex AV system of paging, music and entertain-ment throughout the club.

TCP quickly recommended Martin Audio, not only to deliver the audio goods but also because they offered the profile that Marconi sought. Consulting with TAG, Martin Audio’s representatives in Australia, TCP proposed a system based on the new Blackline H3H. The Blackline speaker range was already hugely popular in Australia with a series of high profile applications including One World Sports, Arthouse Hotel and The Establishment … but Marconi was the first application in Australia for the H3H.

Built in a horizontal configuration specifically for club applications H3H puts an unprecedented amount of audio power into a satellite cabinet. No fewer than ten of these monster cabinets were proposed for Casa.
Casa Nightclub’s venue, The Auditorium, is a dual function auditorium which, as well as providing a venue for the night club, is used to stage concerts for the numerous high-profile local and international artists who perform at Club Marconi. The design brief consequently specified a split system that could be used equally effectively as a front of house concert system or a high powered club system with music sources surrounding the dance floor.

In FOH concert mode four H3H’s provide the main speakers stage left and right and are arrayed to effect even coverage of the front and middle sections of the auditorium. A further two, half way down the auditorium, are delayed, providing coverage of the rear. For Casa Nightclub the two H3H’s covering the front section of the auditorium are complemented with two H3H’s located with the delayed concert H3H’s but pointing back to stage. A further two are located at the sides of the dance floor. Additionally, eight Blackline F8’s cover the perimeter areas for both.

Five S218 double 18in front-loaded subs are located under the stage, each driven by a single 1600W bridged amplifier. Due to some past structural issues the rigidity of the stage was under suspicion. Consequently three tonnes of acoustic dampening material were positioned around and on top of the subs to isolate the stage area. To ensure that most of the low frequency energy was directed away from the walls and on to the middle of the dancefloor an electronically tapered bass-array format was implemented with each section of the subwoofer array receiving separately processed and time aligned signals.

The system is powered by QSC amplification, while an Allen & Heath iDR-8 handles signal routing and gain settings.

Casa Nightclub, promoted as having ‘the best audio system in Sydney’, opened to rave reviews, with the FOH system receiving accolades from patrons and performers alike. To ‘get right’ both FOH and Club systems in a single venue is a rare trick and pays tribute to the quality of the audio componentry, the system design and the technical installation.