Oxford, Alabama-based Sound Solutions recently completed one of the first house of worship installations of the new Electro-Voice EVA compact line array at Center of Hope Church in Anniston, Alabana.
Balancing audio quality with efficiency and a host of unique, user-friendly features, EVA is the line array offering from the first generation of EV’s “EV-Innovation” family of installation-dedicated loudspeaker systems, stemming from the largest R&D project in the company’s 80-year history.
EVA was selected to upgrade the sanctuary sound system to better serve the church’s steadily growing congregation and meet the needs of its weekly services and in-house Christian rock band.
“The space is about 90 feet wide by 120 feet deep, and seats around 1,000 people,” says Joey Hutto of Sound Solutions, “and contains some quite reflective surfaces, including a tile floor, a small balcony, and a metal ceiling. We needed to provide the sonic power and intelligibility they needed, along with highly controlled coverage and long throw; we also wanted to avoid the added expense of delays. Line array was the obvious answer, and our EV Rep Steve Land (EDA Pro Group) told us the brand new EVA system was ready.
“I’d already heard the boxes during a demo and I been really impressed,” Hutto continues. “On the first day of demo-ing EVA in this space, we flew one array of four boxes and fired it up with no shading on the top two boxes (EVA modules contain an internal HF shading network to attenuate the upper or lower HF driver pair by 3 dB), the third box shaded minus 3 dB, and the bottom box shaded minus 6 dB without any processing to see what vocals and music sounded like, and it sounded excellent running flat like that, right out of the box. I knew then that once we got processing and preamps on the system it was going to be a phenomenal-sounding room.
“EV’s Tech support team worked closely with us on the project and did a great job across every detail,” Hutto adds. “The EVADA (EVA Design Assistant software) system design and the EASE model they prepared for EVA in this space sealed the deal: after seeing the kind of efficiency and coverage we could achieve with such a compact configuration, the price became even more attractive – being able to power the whole main system with just two amplifiers is amazing for the level of performance it delivers. There’s nothing else out there that offers these features and level of performance at this price point.”
The system at Center of Hope comprises two hangs with one 2082S/126 and three 2082S/1220 modules in a one over three configuration. For low-end, the church employs two EV QRx218S boxes under the stage. Six compact Zx3 boxes serve as stage wedges.
“When you’re 90 feet away sitting at FOH most line arrays will provide smooth coverage,” adds Hutto, “and so does this one. But when you go up front and stand 20 feet below the EVA arrays, it still isn’t too loud and it’s still smooth. For something being driven by the same amp on top and bottom, that’s great! We didn’t have to put in a whole bunch of individual controls for each section of the array like I usually do.”
In its first week since installing their new EV loudspeakers, Center of Hope reported being very pleased with the sound of its new sanctuary. “Things are sounding great in there,” adds Hutto. “This is one of the best-sounding rooms we’ve done by far. And I love the way the boxes are finished out. In particular, the end-plates look really good, with a very clean look. EVA is simply a very-well designed and executed installed loudspeaker system.”
