Following a four-brand comparison for a proposed PA for its newest location in Ham Lake in 2021, Eagle Brook Church, based in the north Minneapolis suburb of Centerville, has since implemented new sound reinforcement systems utilizing L-Acoustics loudspeakers and supporting components, including A10 constant curvature line sources put into service at Ham Lake, K3i line arrays at the church’s Woodbury campus, and A15i systems at the White Bear, Apple Valley, and new Minneapolis locations.
“They wanted sonic consistency from campus to campus,” explains Deron Yevoli, director of projects and engineering at AVL integrator Summit Integrated Systems, which presented the original comparison. “Only L-Acoustics could give them consistent tonality across a product range that allows them to choose the right product for a specific space and room in each church while still having the same sonic signature that lets you know you are in an Eagle Brook church. That’s an accomplishment.
“We wanted to introduce them to brands with both excellent large- and midsized-format systems,” he continues. “What drew the church to L-Acoustics was the consistent tonality of the systems across the product range and the fact that the array of systems meant they could scale that tonality to all of their church buildings, regardless of size and shape.”
For example, he points out that the A10 is the right fit for Ham Lake’s relatively small — approximately 60 feet from end to end — flat-floored building, while the Woodbury location’s 1,600 raked seats filled by the larger K3i, yet they share the same consistent sonic timbre.
“And the church’s very tech-savvy production systems engineer, Matt Beckstrom, really loves to dig deep into the digital insides of a system, which L-Acoustics’ collaborative tools like Soundvision and its Autofilter feature let us do, to achieve consistent SPL throughout all of the locations,” Yevoli adds.
Beckstrom says the L-Acoustics products allow the church to achieve the strategic goal of providing a reliably consistent experience no matter which location a worshiper chooses to attend. “That extends from the kids’ programs to the kinds of music to the actual audio and video systems, all of which combine to create the Eagle Brook experience,” he says. “We were impressed from the beginning with L-Acoustics’ ability to help us achieve that in terms of our sound. We have a range of different boxes in different churches, but the consistency across all of them is impressive. It makes my role as a systems designer so much easier and more effective.”
Beckstrom also points to the L-Acoustics toolset and its ongoing refinement: “For example, Autofilter’s frequency range, which had been focused on upper frequencies, has been extended downward, which really helps analyze and optimize for a wider range of spaces and designs. And Soundvision has become invaluable to us, allowing us to predict how the sound will play in any corner of a space.”
