Southside Church of Christ in Rogers, AR, wanted to accomplish three goals with their recent sanctuary renovation.
First, on the list was a high performance sound system with an emphasis on natural sound quality. Second was an upgrade the acoustics for enhanced congregational singing. And third, a change the décor of the room from a dated A-frame design to be more appealing to a new generation of church visitors.
The church hired Audio Design Specialists of Madison, Wisconsin, to develop a strategy that would accomplish these goals.
“The first step was to design a sound system to provide very high fidelity reinforcement. The church wanted a system with sufficiently natural sound quality to give the illusion that no system was in operation,” explains John Westra, who headed up the project for Audio Design Specialists. “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 loudspeakers 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 used, distributed between three arcs. The 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.
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, AK.
