Since its founding in 2001, Grace Point Church (GPC) has made an effort to remove the traditional barriers that hinder the ‘unchurched’ from attending worship services.
Ultimately that factored into the deployment of an audio system comprised entirely of Tannoy loudspeakers and Lab.gruppen amplifiers for their new worship center in July 2013.
Providing highly intelligible, natural sounding reinforcement during services of both speech and live performances by their twelve-piece praise band was a priority, but GPC also wanted the facility to be able to host a variety of local cultural and musical events.
To meet those needs CCI Solutions, A/V designer and installer on the project, specified Tannoy loudspeakers exclusively for the roughly 120 foot by 80 foot, 800-person capacity sanctuary.
“They needed a system that would ‘rock,’ but stay on budget,” says Mark Pearson, Senior Systems Consultant at CCI. Designed with future expansion in mind, a hallmark of CCI’s designs, the system is a perfect fit for this particular project, he adds, which includes a temporary rear wall that will eventually be removed to accommodate future growth.
During the design process, however, it was the present – specifically the need stay on budget – that prompted Pearson to specify three VQNET 100s (flown above and behind the front edge of the stage) and two custom VNET 218 subs for low end support as mains for GPC’s sanctuary. With the room’s seating conveniently separated by aisles into three wedges, one VQNET per seating area was more than sufficient.
Because the Pastor wanted a very low stage – only 28 inches high – placing the North American VNET 218s in sub bunkers was out of the question. Fortunately, the European VNET 218s were a perfect fit and provided Pearson with the additional 3 dB of coupling he was looking for.
“CCI was designing two other projects with VQ boxes, and I was really impressed with their vocal intelligibility, coherence and phase response,” Pearson says, adding that the complement of Tannoy loudspeakers chosen met the needs of the asymmetrical room and stage perfectly.
Additional coverage for front row seating was provided by five Tannoy VX5.2s placed around the perimeter of the stage in bunkers and two IS 52s inset into the stage’s stairs and powered by a Lab.gruppen C 20:8.
Distributed audio systems in GPC’s foyer/gallery and coffee area are comprised of six Tannoy OCV 6 pendants, four CVS 8s and seven CVS 6s, which provide consistent and clear coverage in a space where ceiling heights vary between 26′ and 10′. Pearson also specified two Lab.gruppen E 12:2 amplifiers to drive the sanctuary’s monitor system and two E 8:2s for the distributed systems.
“I’ve always been a fan of Lab.gruppen and the E Series are pretty much my go-to amplifiers now because they’re economical, efficient and don’t use a lot of rack space,” he explains.
Other system elements include a Yamaha CL3 digital console, BSS Soundweb London DSP, Sennheiser microphones and a Shure ULX-D Digital Wireless System.
When budget cuts prompted CCI to reevaluate which Tannoy elements to use, GPC’s Worship Arts Pastor, Jerad Sears, was concerned about sacrificing sound quality.
“We needed headroom and warm, full sound. In our previous space the speaker cluster was small, but loud, and it hurt people’s ears,” Sears commented. “In this new room we did not want to sacrifice quality sound, but Mark said, ‘You won’t; you’re cutting down on expense, not on quality,’ and he was right.
“In our old building the sound was completely different depending upon where you were in the room. Now, with just three boxes for the main cluster, you’d be hard pressed to find a spot that sounds any different from another. It’s very impressive.”
