Southside Church of Christ in Rogers, AR, wanted to accomplish three goals with a recent sanctuary renovation: a high-performance sound system with an emphasis on natural sound quality, upgraded acoustics for enhanced congregational singing, and a change of décor to be more appealing to a new generation of church visitors.
The church hired Audio Design Specialists of Madison, WI, to develop a strategy to accomplish these goals. “The first step was to design a sound system to provide very high fidelity reinforcement,” explains John Westra, who headed up the project for Audio Design Specialists. “The church wanted a system with sufficiently natural sound quality to give the illusion that no system was in operation. Tannoy Dual Concentric loudspeaker systems are the default choice when very high fidelity is required, in addition to their uniform dispersion characteristics.”
The auditorium seats 600 on a long rectangular floor. The effective height of the ceiling was lowered in the form of Venue Technologies clouds to support congregational singing. The elevation of the clouds determined the elevation of the loudspeaker systems, nestled in the dark gaps between clouds. Being black, the loudspeaker systems are essentially invisible, contributing to the illusion that no system is in operation.
In order to insure uniform coverage from this lower elevation, 12 Tannoy VX 12s were deployed, distributed between three arcs. he first arc of four is just ahead of the platform to provide the precedence signal, and the second and third arcs of four each are time delayed to take advantage of the Haas effect, giving the illusion that all of the sound is coming from the platform. Due to the wide and uniform dispersion of the VX 12, the coverage is seamless.
The VX 12 enclosures, loaded with a 12-inch Dual Concentric full-range driver, provide optimum coverage and forward gain with a tightly controlled 90 degree dispersion. With peak output of 126 dB the loudspeakers more than met the current and future needs of the churcht.
In order to provide an aesthetic bridge between the new ceiling clouds and the side walls, Venue Technologies diffusive channels were applied to the balance of the otherwise exposed ceiling. The installing contractor for both the sound system and the acoustical package was Mike’s Sound Systems of Conway, AR.
