Once it was a sleepy little central Florida town whose economy was tied to the citrus growing industry. Today, Orlando, Fla., is the theme park capital of the world.

Disney World was first to discover Orlando. But it now shares that address with Universal Studios theme' parks, which recently completed opening Universal Studios CityWalk, an eclectic, 30-acre collection of themed restaurants, movie theaters and night spots - from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville to the CityJazz club and Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame. One enthusiastic local observer called it, “the soul-stirring core of Orlando.”

While construction of the buildings was a huge and complex project, other vital areas such as lighting effects and sound reinforcement were equally as daunting. Signal Perfection Limited of Orlando was contracted to provide the lion's share of the sound reinforcement at CityWalk.

The sound engineering aspects provided some challenges for SPL. “We were to provide separate sound systems that had to function independently at individual venues but have the ability to be linked together for an area-wide system, if necessary,” said Rick Lavin, lead engineer and project manager for SPL.

And just to add a little pressure to the mix, all of the projects were being installed at the same time. “I spent a lot of time putting out fires,” he said.

BAG END Loudspeaker Systems, already installed in two attractions at Universal Studios - “Terminator 2” and “Earthquake: The Big One” - were no strangers to Universal or SPL so it was no surprise that SPL selected BAG END Loudspeaker Systems to provide the subwoofer systems in three of performance venues at CityWalk.

The biggest individual project in the group involved a 13,000-square-foot dance club called “the groove.” Designed to look like a century-old theater in the midst of varying levels of restoration, its focal point is a huge central dance floor in front of a 26x17-foot stage. The club, which has a capacity of nearly 1,000, features recorded music almost exclusively, but hosts live bands on stage on occasion.

“This was the biggest project in terms of the sound system,” Lavin said. “Being a dance club the volume levels they run at during a normal night's operation are considerably higher than in the other venue.”

So SPL provided the groove with plenty of beef: three BAG END QUARTZ high-performance quad-18 cabinets, controlled by a BAG END ELF-1 processor - that's a total of 12 18-inch subwoofer pumping out a bottom end that goes down to 8 Hz, with flat response. The QUARTZ are installed underneath the stage in enclosures custom-built to conceal them and masked with grill material to match the decor of the room.

“We ran into one problem,” Lavin said. “In the initial design they had wanted to go with an all-CD based operation. The room was set up like a proscenium stage where live bands - when scheduled - would perform. When deejays are supplying recorded music, a large video wall takes up the stage area, and the deejay booth is located on house right. The club management quickly realized they had to install turntables because most deejays are used to working with turntables and have large collections on vinyl. Being surrounded by speakers the turntables created a real feedback problem - which we finally solved that with filtering.”

“The management and deejays at ‘the groove’ absolutely love the BAG ENDs," Lavin said. “They like their bottom end and definitely push the speakers to the limit.”

In contrast to the raucous and wild ‘groove, the mellow CityJazz club is exclusively a live music venue, where jazz masters from the past, present and future take center stage. In conjunction with the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, the venue, conceptualized by the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, is one of the premier small performance venues in the state of Florida.

Lavin is justly proud of the high quality sound system SPL installed in CityJazz. “Russ Freeman and the Rippingtons performed opening night and the system performed very well,” Lavin said. “Both the band and the management were very happy with it.” And once again BAG END provided the subwoofers for the system.

“Because CityJazz is only 10,500 square feet we needed only two BAG END QUARTZ subwoofer enclosures with ELF-1 processor.” And the eight BAG END subwoofers provide a rich, clear, crisp bass signal that jazz artists love crave.

Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville is a complete contrast to the groove and City Jazz. While those two venues are primarily night spots, Margaritaville is primarily a 517-seat restaurant open all day and into the night.

“This is a real multipurpose system,” Laving said. “During the day, the sound is primarily background in nature. We installed an automated audio/video system that plays a program of Jimmy Buffett videos and interviews over an automated audio and video system,” Lavin said. "At night a live band plays Jimmy Buffett style music - but not loud. With that in mind we used two BAG END D12-E double-12 subwoofer enclosures, again controlled by ELF-M processor to provide the bottom end.”

So is Lavin pleased with the results? “Even though our company had used BAG END products before, I personally had not worked with BAG END,” He said. “I'll tell you what, I really like the QUARTZ - it's good sounding systems with a lot of output - especially considering the size of the cabinet - it's a very small enclosure for the amount of sound you get out of it.”