An recent upgrade to the worship sanctuary audio infrastructure at Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee, WI utilized existing and new components from Allen & Heath.
Church leadership wanted to make sure the audio components didn’t distract visually and could be accessed and utilized by technical staff. Since sections of the ceiling in the venue were well over 20 feet tall, overhead runs were out of the question. With an Allen & Heath dLive digital mix system already in place in the facility, Eastbrook tapped into the “Everything I/O” range of hardware options to help overcome these logistical challenges.
“We knew that Allen & Heath would have a good solution to our tricky cable run requirements,” notes Nick Snyder, Junior Engineer with Avenue Systems, the integrator on the project. “With Eastbrook’s dLive DM48 MixRack at the back of house, the stage pocket cable runs couldn’t be run anywhere but into the basement. With a single CAT cable and robust locking EtherCon ports, we could feed between each stage pocket and connect everything up as needed, though. We installed two of the DX164-W Wall Mount DX Expanders in another project recently, so we knew how cool they are and went that route again here.”
The DX164-W is a wall-mountable expander that adds remote I/O to a dLive, Avantis or SQ mixer, or to the AHM-64 audio matrix processor. Designed for wall mount or dip trap installation, DX164-W (and the Dante-enabled DT164-W) offers 16 mic preamps with independent phantom power LED indicators, four balanced XLR outputs and 96 kHz converters. While up to 46 units can be added to a dLive system via a DX Link card or DX Hub (offering support for up to 808 analog inputs and 224 analog outputs), the Eastbrook Church project was able to directly connect without an additional card or hub.
The DX164-W’s design also allows for installation in a stage dip trap making it perfect for fixed installations. Compatible with ACE Backstage 174SLBK stage pocket system made mounting of the DX164-W a straightforward task. In addition to the 174SLBK, ACE Backstage manufactures a line of flush stage pockets designed to provide utility, protection, and easy installation.
“These DX units are really a great piece of gear and they fit beautifully in the ACE Backstage box,” Snyder adds. “The DX and ACE mount came together to make life a million times easier and time efficient on the install side. What could have been a multi-day, six-person job with other I/O and mount solutions became an easy half-day, two-person job.”
Allen & Heath USA Marketing Director Jeff Hawley concludes, “We’ve seen so many projects come along lately where the I/O requirement pointed to something other than a traditional ‘live sound’ stage box or rack mount form factor. Eastbrook Church is a great example of this trend, and Nick and the Avenue Systems team stepped in with the DX164-W and ACE box combo for the win.”
