Established in 1983, Northside Baptist Church (NBC) in Huntsville, TX has grown from a small group of people meeting in a living room to its current membership of 1,600 who gather in a new worship sanctuary equipped with Powersoft-driven loudspeakers from TW AUDiO.
“Since it was a new construction project, we didn’t know what the best fit for the space would be, regarding the sound system,” explains Bob Slie, media director at NBC. “Our worship pastor and I attended WFX 2019 in Orlando, as they had almost a dozen audio manufacturers come in and set up in the same space, which allowed us to compare the different systems impartially. We were absolutely blown away by TW AUDiO’s then-new ELLA system, which was powered by Powersoft amplifier platforms. We met with Mick Whelan from TW AUDiO and began a relationship that would take us a year and a half down the road to their first U.S. installation in a church with ELLA and Powersoft.”
Slie contacted local integration company Arrendell Media to supply and install the system. Company owner Brian Arrendell liaised with both Whelan and Slie in order to ensure that the system was installed to the specifications provided by TW AUDiO.
“We also had Rick Woida from Powersoft come in to help complete the installation by setting everything up and tuning the system along with Mick,” says Slie. “They spent three days with us getting everything set perfectly, including having our band come in on the final day to put the system through its paces. This final step of having someone here from each of the two companies was integral to getting the sound we required.”
Whelan and his team from TW Audio designed the loudspeaker configuration for the sanctuary, with left-right arrays of ELLA6 loudspeakers accompanied by six VERA S32i directional subwoofers flown in the center of the room to bolster the low end. Two more ELLA6 loudspakers are flown below the subs to provide center fill, with another pair of ELLA6 boxes installed at the far left and right of the room to serve as out fills in bolstering clarity and vocal intelligibility to those seats. Powersoft Quattrocanali 8804 Dante + DSP amplifiers were chosen to power the system.
“It was Mick from TW AUDiO who chose Powersoft,” Arrendell notes. “This was our first experience using Powersoft and I have to say that these amplifiers are amazing. Their capabilities and the built-in monitoring features are great. Of course, I love all of the bells and whistles, but the actual sound of a system is always the determining factor in a product choice for me.
“The Quattrocanali 8804 Dante + DSP amplifiers were great for this application for a few reasons,” he continues. “The Dante inputs were great to interface with the Allen & Heath Avantis Dante I/O at front of house. The fact that it will easily handle different impedance loads on the same amplifier really helped, while the Rational Acoustics Smaart API was great for the system tuning process. Rick from Powersoft was there to tune the PA system and he was great to work alongside with. He was very helpful, and he showed me around the ArmoníaPlus control platform.”
Slie adds: “The amps from Powersoft produce pristine sound and are far more controllable than any system I’ve ever worked with. The ability to network, monitor, and mute our system from one location in the sound booth gives us complete control over our output. We were coming from an old system of 3U and 4U amps that are extremely heavy, low powered, and had no options for monitoring the output from the control desk. The Powersoft amps are not only smaller and lighter, but unsurpassed in the quality of their onboard technology.”
