The sanctuary at Cedar Creek Church.

The truth of the saying, "everything is relative" has been brought home to Kraig Mackett, executive pastor of Cedar Creek Church. Ever since the Perrysburg, Ohio church moved to a new (albeit temporary) worship space, parishioners have commented positively about what a difference the move to the new building has made in the sound quality of both music and voice during the Sunday service.

Mackett's confesses a little secret, though, "Acoustically, the building is really awful."

But Mackett understands part of the source of the rave reviews. "Everyone is in awe of what we have now, given the fact that we've always met in school buildings before and used portable sound equipment that we used to have to set up and tear down before and after each service."

The other part is the sound system. In the church's new 15,000-square-foot auditorium (only a small part of the facilities 54,000 sq. ft.) where services are now held, Caravan Industries, an Elyria, Ohio-based audio systems integrator, installed 10 Sound Physics Labs' SPL-td1 loudspeakers as well as two ServoDrive BassTech 7 subwoofers and three SPL-C3 Contractor Cubes.

The SPL-td1s, were installed in three clusters flown 21 feet above the stage floor: a center cluster of four cabinets and a left and right cluster, each consisting of three boxes. The subwoofers were situated under the stage area, while the Contractors Cubes were flown over the front-of-house soundboard position for monitoring purposes.

The SPL loudspeakers are driven by a mix of Crest CA Series amps and controlled via a Yamaha M2500, 48-channel console and two Shure 4800 processors, have fully met Mackett's expectations, which were fueled by his own knowledge of the products as well as the endorsement of Rick Galbraith of Caravan Industries. ."

Mackett the SPL loudspeakers for making a challenging acoustical environment easier to live with. "Part of the SPL-td1s' attraction is that they're very directional cabinets, so we don't have to worry as much about spillover. The sound is coming out at the angles that are pre-set. So the speakers have helped overcome the venue to some extent."

The SPL products, though, have not been wholly responsible for the success of CedarCreek's new sound system. Caravan Industries played an important role in specifying, designing and installing a system that would get the most out of the church's challenging sound environment.

"Since the SPL's are very directional we had to design the system to keep the audio off the walls and directed into the audience area, because it was a very reverberant environment," says Caravan's Galbraith. Called in early in the project, he also had a hand in helping design parts of the venue so the sound system would perform up to its capabilities. For instance, Galbraith helped design the thrust area of the stage so they could house subwoofers and other sound equipment that will likely be added later. "We recommended that they go with a concrete structure for the stage, rather than a metal, because the output power of the subwoofers would have rattled the thrust."

That power is likely to be doubled in coming months as the church enters the next phase of its sound system design work. Mackett says plans call for two more subwoofers to be added to the mix, as well as ten SPL Contractor Cubes that will be installed in a delay ring assembled in an arc pattern about 30 feet off the floor around the back of the room. In addition, the church will purchase five SPL-trik boundary compliant loudspeakers - a lower-profile version of the SPL-td1s - which will be installed in five bays across the front of the stage and used for front fill purposes.

Mackett says the additional SPL equipment will further enhance the building's sound and help to diminish the acoustical challenges. Added expenditures to round out the audio system were made possible because of the savings on amplifiers and processing equipment, he adds.