The Lay Of The Land
The Lamb’s Chapel sanctuary is a rectangular space with a main floor area measuring 134 feet in width by 92 feet in length to the rear wall and a ceiling height of 36 feet. A balcony extends from the rear wall of the main floor and this area increases overall room length to 148 feet.
In addition to addressing a number of acoustical reflections, the most pressing challenge in terms of sound system design was to gain even dispersion throughout the space – including the rear balcony area – without drowning those members of the congregation close to the stage with overly oppressive sound pressure levels.
Though the sanctuary is carpeted, the room’s sheetrock walls created a number of undesirable acoustic reflections that seriously degraded speech intelligibility, as Boone explained. “With engineering assistance from WorxAudio’s Hugh Sarvis, who used a TEF analyzer to measure the room and EASE Focus for modeling, it became immediately clear that the two rear walls opposing the stage (the front and rear extremities of the balcony) were real problem spots that required acoustical treatment.
“To address this, we used 1-inch thick acoustic paneling made from Manville Whispertone wallboard that we covered with sound absorbing material from the Interface Fabric Group (part of Guilford of Maine). We also applied panels along the upper portion of the side walls to further dampen the area.”
The Soundscape Takes Shape
Over the front edge of the stage area, the Boone Audio crew flew three clusters consisting of WorxAudio Technologies TrueLine M80i-P self-powered, 2-way line array elements utilizing dual 8-inch cone transducers coupled with a 1-inch exit compression driver.
The left and right clusters each consist of four M80i-P modules along with a single M80iDF-P downfill module. The center cluster consists of eight M80i-P elements plus the M80iDF-P downfill module.
For sub bass reinforcement, the system includes three subwoofers. Two WorxAudio TL218SS-P self-powered, dual 18-inch subwoofers are vertically aligned with the left and right line array clusters and are positioned underneath the front edge of the stage. Additionally, a single TL.118SS-P single 18-inch subwoofer is located underneath the stage’s front center.
On the rear of the center array, there is single M80i-P module mounted to the top of the cluster. This element serves as a down-firing monitor for the choir. Boone noted, “With the enclosures’ 160-degree horizontal, 10-degree vertical dispersion pattern, it does a great job covering a large choir, and since it’s mounted to the back of the cluster, it’s invisible to the audience.
Supplementing the down-firing M80i-P, there are two WorxAudio Wave Series 8M stage monitors that can be freely positioned as needed. Augmenting these monitors, the performing musicians and praise leader utilize Aviom Pro16 in-ear monitor systems.