Christ United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, the denomination’s third-largest church in the U.S., offers services that regularly feature a 150-person choir and an orchestra of up to 80 pieces as well as smaller ensemble groups.
The backdrop for all of this is a beautiful sanctuary with a tough acoustical environment chock full of granite staging, stained glass, travertine surfaces, plenty of expansive walls and 1,600 wood-backed seats.
While the worship sanctuary has only been open for about seven years, the sound system was proving inadequate in terms of even coverage of the entire space, and lacked both commensurate intelligibility and musicality.
Chuck Weatherford, the minister of music at the church, contacted Howard Reitzes of Harrd Road, a design/install and touring sound company based in Carlsbad, California, to discuss solutions.
The two share a long association of collaborating on church sound system upgrades and retrofits.
“The original system was proving completely inadequate for the space,” explains Weatherford. “The architecture is beautiful, but the space is an acoustical nightmare. The previous design did not take these issues into account.”
Devising Coverage
The sanctuary is fan-shaped, far wider than it is deep, with a second level of seating running the entire back of the room. A 100-foot wide front platform anchors the front of the room, with a “steeple” ceiling running down the heart of the listening area.
“The space called for a system that would ensure coverage of the seating area without bouncing off the walls and ceiling,” Reitzes says.
“I’ve worked with McCauley Sound loudspeakers for several years and believed that their IN.LINE line array modules, powered by Lab.gruppen amplifiers, would provide what was needed in terms of output with fidelity, and tight pattern control.”
Reitzes worked with the McCauley tech team in formulating array structures and locations. Because IN.LINE array modules operate tangently with other IN.LINE modules, the components of an array can meet the need for specialized coverage patterns.
The main system is headed by two IN.LINE arrays flown to the left and right of the wide front platform. Each array consists of four N90 (90-degree horizontal dispersion) atop five N120 providing wider (120-degree horizontal dispersion) to better cover the nearer seating areas.
Both of these modules are 2-way designs with twin 8.8-inch cone drivers and a 1-inch-exit extended high frequency compression driver.
Three McCauley NS1 dual 15-inch subwoofers fly directly behind each array, with Harrd Road fabricating custom brackets for both the arrays and subs to work around support issues.
“The subwoofers are behind the arrays because it looks much cleaner, with the non-directional output of the subs unaffected by this location,” explains Reitzes.
Two pairs of McCauley ID2.208-96 narrow-profile 2-way loudspeakers, mounted to pillars, supply side fill coverage to the widest “wings” of the coverage area.
Eight more provide delay coverage to the balcony, with their rotatable 90-degree by 60-degree waveguides allowing them to mounted horizontally.
Further low-end energy is supplied by four McCauley M88 dual-18-inch subs that are stacked in pairs on the floor to the left and right of the platform. All loudspeakers and subs were custom painted by McCauley to better blend into the aesthetics of the space.