The worship sanctuary at the newest church location of Iglesia El Lugar de Su Presencia in Bogotá, Columbia has been outfitted with an audio system utilizing L-Acoustics loudspeakers and supporting components to deliver sound reinforcement to its nearly 4,000 seats.
Following an onsite comparative evaluation of four brands of loudspeaker systems and later experiencing L-Acoustics K2 arrays in use at Christ Fellowship Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida, El Lugar de Su Presencia chose L-Acoustics for the sanctuary at its new Suba campus. Bogotá-based AVCOM, an L-Acoustics Certified Provider for install (CPi), integrated a complement of L-Acoustics K, A, and X Series loudspeaker systems at the sanctuary, which was constructed on the site of a former mall that had been leveled to make way for the new space.
Like many other projects, the Covid pandemic delayed work; the L-Acoustics system components were actually delivered onsite in June of 2020 but assembly couldn’t commence until a full year later. In the meantime, AVCOM worked closely with L-Acoustics house of worship applications project manager Josh Maichele and Alex Soto, L-Acoustics applications engineer for Latin America and The Caribbean, using the manufacturer’s Soundvision software to design, implement, and calibrate the syste.
Wanting to minimize the distance between the stage and seats in the new sanctuary to enhance connection, the church opted for a fan-shaped house design, a layout that can potentially complicate audio coverage. “We decided on a combination of K, A, and X Series speakers that would give us a completely customized solution to cover the entire seating area evenly and uniformly,” says AVCOM live application specialist Marco Pineda. “The church’s audio tech director wanted no more than 3 dB SPL variation to any seat, front to back and side to side, as well as even distribution of the low frequency energy, and L-Acoustics had an answer to every question in the system design.”
The new loudspeaker system includes four arrays of six K2 plus three Kara down-fill enclosures, with three KS28 subwoofers flown behind each hang and eight more KS28 arrayed on the ground. Ten short-throw coaxial X8 serve as front-fills along the lip of the stage. Six A10 and two X8 are flown as under-balcony fills, with three A15i delay out-fills complementing the far back corners.
The loudspeaers are driven 28 amplified controllers, including 21 LA12X for the mains, out-fills, and subs, and seven LA4X for everything else. Three L-Acoustics P1 processors, paired with the M1 measurement tool suite and controlled via LA Network Manager, as well as three Avnu-certified LS10 AVB switches are also integrated into the system. All audio runs on Milan-AVB for the main signal, with AES/EBU and analog available as fallback signals.
“The room was built very well, with great attention paid to its acoustics,” Pineda says. “The real challenge was the layout of the seating. For the pastor, it’s all about making sure everything can be heard clearly by everyone. He wanted a lot of presence and clarity, and that’s what this system delivers. The main hangs of K2 offer tremendous presence and power without being overpowering, and the A Series and X8 are the perfect fill speakers for this room. There is actually no more than a 2 dB variation in SPL throughout the seats, so no matter where you sit, you hear everything, and you hear it clearly.”
Church Audio tech director Juan Pablo adds the new and larger location required a bigger and better PA system. “This campus has an important area to cover, and we wanted a PA system that could bring the worship experience to a new level,” he explains. “We also wanted a PA system where the voice could be heard warm and soft, but at the same time could be able to cover every seat, without losing the deep round low-frequency sound that we like.”
