Ames, IA (February 22, 2018)—CrossRoad Baptist Church recently upgraded its sound reinforcement system with the aid of Communication Innovators (Pleasant Hill, IA), a design / build firm specializing in audio, video, lighting, and acoustics for the church and commercial markets.
Eric Bishop, CTS-AVL engineer with Communication Innovators, was directly involved in the design and programming aspects; needing to cover a congregation of upwards of 500 people, he found the defining requirements for the new system would be intelligible audio and refined music quality. As a result, the installation team flew two PreSonus WorxAudio X5i compact line array enclosures for the left/right mains, placing them 9.5 feet off center using schedule 40 pipe attached to the structure. These two enclosures were angled approximately 30 degrees out and 10 degrees down, with the bottom trim at a height of 19 feet above the stage.
Low frequency support is accomplished with one TL118SS Super Sub and one TL218SS Super Sub, flown above center stage in a hybrid end-fire array to create a cardioid effect and spaced 5 feet between grills. The rear single 18 sub is time-aligned to be slightly out of phase compared to the front dual 18 sub to create a cancelling effect above the stage. Both sub bass enclosures are attached to the structure with steel and wire rope.
A single V5Mi serves as a center positioned downfill enclosure, aimed to fill in the center front rows where the left and right X5i enclosures drop off, and additionally, there is a single Wave Series W-12Ai loudspeaker that is used for delay purposes, aimed at the sound booth on the 2nd level. All loudspeakers are passive in design and are powered by Ashly amplifiers with Dante network cards. Loudspeaker management is handled by a BSS BLU-50 4 x 4 signal processor with BLU Link, a low latency, fault tolerant digital audio bus of 48 channels, which uses standard Category 5e cabling.
CrossRoad Baptist Church’s new sound system was immediately placed into service. With the project now in the rear-view mirror, Bishop reports a very positive outcome, “The client upgraded the assistive listening system (ALS) at the same time as this sound reinforcement upgrade. This ALS system was used by patrons on the first week but wasn’t being utilized thereafter. When the client inquired why people were no longer using the ALS, he discovered that they didn’t feel they needed them—everything was clear and easy to understand in the room given the new loudspeakers and acoustic treatment.”
Communication Innovators • http://www.gotoci.com
CrossRoad Baptist Church • http://cbcames.org
PreSonus Audio Electronics • www.presonus.com
