With a wide range of programs designed to address its varied congregation, Pennsville Baptist Church has two Sunday services plus a Wednesday evening Ladies Bible study program.
In order to ensure its message is delivered clearly to all who attend the various services, the church recently elected to upgrade its sound reinforcement capabilities, selecting compact line array technology from WorxAudio Technologies, a division of PreSonus Audio Electronics.
Good Sounds of New Stanton, PA, was contracted to design and deploy Pennsville Baptist Church’s new sound system. Upon learning the requirements of the project, the decision was made to install WorxAudio’s X5i-P compact, powered line arrays. Dwight Brown, Good Sounds’ owner and principal system designer, discussed the project and his decision to deploy WorxAudio loudspeaker equipment.
“The main sanctuary is roughly 70 feet wide from pew to pew and 85 feet long from the stage to the back pew,” Brown reports. “The main area seats approximately 800 people. To the left of the stage—running the entire length of the sanctuary—there is an overflow section that houses approximately 100-120 movable seats. The stage faces the length of the room; so solid vertical throw was every bit as important as having broad horizontal coverage. Church management wanted a system that wouldn’t visually detract from the aesthetics of the room while being able to deliver consistent sound coverage throughout the space.”
“Given these requirements,” Brown continued, “the WorxAudio X5i-P made a compelling choice for this project. The system is flown from the center of the sanctuary, approximately 8 feet in front of the stage at a height of 18 feet to the top of the array.”
The WorxAudio X5i-P incorporates five modules in a single enclosure for a total of five one-inch-exit, compression high-frequency drivers and ten eight-inch cone transducers for low-frequency reproduction. This ultra-compact line array features an ultra-wide 160-degree horizontal by 40-degree vertical coverage pattern.
According to Brown, Pennsville Baptist Church’s services are still fairly traditional in nature. A praise team has developed over the past few years to become a more integral part of the Sunday morning service and the band can number anywhere from 5 to 10 members or more. The praise and worship part of this service frequently includes various soloists plus the church choir. As a result, solid music reproduction characteristics were considered essential. Similarly, a high level of speech intelligibility was required to ensure the congregation could clearly hear what was being said.
When queried about those attributes that made the WorxAudio X5i-P the ideal choice for this project, Brown offered the following thoughts. “This loudspeaker system has 160 degrees of horizontal coverage and 40 degrees of vertical throw, which blankets the entire sanctuary with incredibly clean, expressive sound,” Brown reports. “Its all-in-one design presents a very clean, uncluttered appearance and the integrated PXD-2580 power amp makes this loudspeaker system a complete turnkey solution.”
During many installations, questions inevitably arise and, here too, Brown was very complimentary of WorxAudio’s support services. “The WorxAudio staff has been incredible to work with and is always willing to assist with whatever I need,” Brown reports. “I learned from a prior WorxAudio installation and that experience carried over into this project, along with the help of WorxAudio’s director of Commercial Audio, Tony Flammia.”
Pennsville Baptist Church’s new sound system was placed into service in May 2016 and, since then, has been garnering a wide range of compliments.
“The project has been a huge success,” Brown says. “The speakers that we replaced were just not right for the room and didn’t compliment the praise music that was so important to the service. The new WorxAudio system sounds terrific and there isn’t a bad seat in the house. This installation has already led to another project. When one job leads to another, it really doesn’t get any better.”
WorxAudio Technologies
PreSonus Audio Electronics
Good Sounds
