Lakeville High School and Southland City Church, both located in the Minneapolis area, recently teamed up to find a sound reinforcement solution for the Lakeville High School auditorium, which is used by the church for Sunday services and by the school for classes, assemblies and theater productions.
Maple Grove, Minnesota-based Excel AV Group, the systems integrator called in to work with both organizations, designed and installed a dBTechnologies line array system to meet their needs.
“I took one look at the 750-seat auditorium with the steep raked floor and soft theater-style seats and knew that a line array solutions would be the best for the room,” says Excel AV Group owner Kevin Crow. “I tasked my engineer Caleb Dick with the responsibility to find an affordable solution.”
The Excel AV team looked at both traditional point source boxes (like ones being proposed by a competitor) and line array solutions. Further investigation revealed that although the dBTechnologies DVA-T4 active three-way line array system solution was slightly higher in equipment cost, the installation costs were much lower, making it an affordable solution.
“We didn’t have to fly four traditional point source boxes in the room, two in front and two in back,” adds Crow who also pointed out that the point source solution would have also incurred the additional expense of delay configurations, more wiring, amps and rigging.
The final design consisted of two hangs of seven DVA-T4 line array modules, augmented with two dB Technologies DVA-S30N active dual 18-inch subwoofers on the floor.
“The coverage is simply amazing,” says Justin Vagle, director of worship for Southland City Church. “We have measured only 1 dB difference front to back. In addition, the subs are tight and impacting.”
“I remember when my guys were out tuning the system and finishing it by our very challenging deadline,” Crow says. “Around 10 p.m. I got a text from Grant Kluempke my tech operations manager that read ‘the system at Southland pounds!!!’ It was really fun to hear that. What’s more it proved to be true when I attending the first services with the new rig, it made the worship music so powerful.”
Regarding the dB Technologies system, Crow concludes, “In the big picture I think the value that dB Technologies offers the marketplace is phenomenal. I don’t see how anyone (after hearing these boxes) could deny that – especially at such an affordable price. We are already introducing this line to other clients and couldn’t be more excited.”
