The worship sanctuary on the Gold Coast, Australia campus of Glow Church, which also has additional locations in the country as well as the UK, South Korea and U.S., was recently outfitted with a new main loudspeaker system incorporating Adamson iS7 compact line arrays and S119 subwoofers to support its contemporary services.
The church, which was founded by pastors Joel and Ellen Cave in Gold Coast, a coastal city in the state of Queensland, worked with Australia-based system integration Forefront on the project. It follows Forefront’s successful implementation of iS7 line arrays at the church’s Melbourne campus, a successful endeavor that led to the same loudspeaker models being chosen for Gold Coast.
Adamson Australian distributor CMI Audio partnered with Forefront on the system design in addition to providing technical support. In addition, CMI also provided the integrator with additional Adamson inventory to put in place a full-scale demonstration system and then temporary loan equipment until the ordered gear arrived.
“The worldwide challenges of equipment supply in our industry is ongoing and a daily challenge. You can’t always obtain the products desired for a job in a reasonable timeframe,” says Nick Burns of Forefront. “Fortunately, CMI Audio has great foresight in anticipating our needs, and supply of Adamson equipment has been the most accessible of any product we deal with in this challenging season.”
Specifically, the new system incorporates left and right arrays each comprised of eight iS7 array modules, with outfill coverage on both sides bolstered with arrays of six iS7 modules. “The system was designed specifically to eliminate any need for stage lip front fill, even with the usual higher level of acoustic energy spilling from stage for the first rows of seating, which is always tricky to combat in a church setting,” Burns explains.
Low frequencies are reinforced by six iS119 subwoofers positioned under the front of the stage. All loudspeakers and subwoofers are driven with riving the system are Lab Gruppen D:Series power amplifiers with integrated Lake Processing on board.
“The iS119 is a very powerful sub with very musical sonic characteristics,” notes Matt Wever of Forefront, who took the point on the design of the system. “In this case, the number of sub elements more so deployed to provide controlled coverage and consistency throughout the space rather than bone-rattling bottom end.”
Pastor Joel Cave concludes, “When we heard the Adamson system side-by-side with the existing system at our Gold Coast campus, it was day and night for the room itself and it became an easy decision. The quality difference was extremely noticeable, in the bottom end and particularly the warmth and vocal quality cutting through with clarity and precision in comparison with the previously muddy aspects and little separation between musicians and vocalists, which felt like they were always competing with one another.
“Now with the Adamson system, each vocalist and musician is sitting right where you want to them to be in the mix and easily distinguishable from one another. The lead vocals can always cut through with ease like a hot knife through butter.”
