CrossRoad Baptist Church in Ames, IA offers a wide range of programs tailored to various groups within the congregation, now enhanced with an upgrade to the sanctuary’s sound reinforcement system led by the deployment of loudspeakers from the WorxAudio catalog, offered by PreSonus.
Communication Innovators of Pleasant Hill, IA, a design/build firm specializing in audio, video, lighting, and acoustics for the church and commercial markets, was contracted to design and install the new sound reinforcement equipment at church, with Eric Bishop, CTS – AVL Engineer with Communication Innovators, directly involved in the design and programming aspects of the company’s systems.
“With a congregation size of 400 – 500 people, CrossRoad Baptist has a lively, contemporary atmosphere with one Sunday morning service,” Bishop explains. “In order to ensure they were conveying their message in the best way possible, there was a strong emphasis on intelligible audio and refined music quality for their loudspeaker system, and this is what defined the requirements for improving the acoustics in their sanctuary.”
To address these requirements, the Communication Innovators installation team flew two PreSonus WorxAudio X5i compact all-in-one line array enclosures (for the left – right mains) 9.5 feet off center using schedule 40 pipe attached to the structure. These two enclosures were angled approximately 30 degrees out and 10 degrees down with the bottom trim at a height of 19 feet above the stage.
Low-frequency support is accomplished with one TL118SS Super Sub and one TL218SS Super Sub. These are flown above center stage in a Hybrid End-Fire array to create a cardioid effect and spaced 5 feet between grills. The rear single 18 sub (TL118SS) is time aligned to be slightly out of phase compared to the front dual 18 sub (TL218SS) to create a cancelling effect above the stage. Both sub bass enclosures are attached to the structure with steel and wire rope.
Augmenting this setup is a single PreSonus WorxAudio V5Mi, which serves as a center positioned down fill enclosure. It is aimed to fill in the center front rows where the left and right X5i enclosures drop off, attached to the structure via Schedule 40 pipe and the cathedral mount. Additionally, there’s a single Wave Series W-12Ai loudspeaker used for delay purposes, attached to the structure via wire rope and steel and aimed at the sound booth on the sanctuary’s second level.
All loudspeakers are passive, powered by Ashly amplifiers with Dante network cards. Loudspeaker management is handled by a BSS BLU-50 4 x 4 signal processor with BLU Link, a low latency, fault tolerant digital audio bus of 48 channels that uses standard Cat-5e cabling.
“We worked directly with the PreSonus design team (Jon Taylor and Tony Flammia) to ensure the best coverage possible,” Bishop says. “There were a lot of obstacles to overcome with the wide seating arrangement and the odd structure shape for mounting purposes. Together, we came up with what ended up being the perfect solution, and the client is very pleased with the result! Tony Flammia came on-site to commission the system so that everyone had the ease of mind knowing it was set to the highest standard and that the manufacturer stood behind the install. We were very impressed.”
