University Christian Church of Muncie, Indiana recently upgraded its gymnasium into a multipurpose facility that measures 120 by 60 feet, with a ceiling height of 25 feet and seating for 400 to 450 people.
The gymnasium includes a new sound-reinforcement setup with loudspeakers drawn from the TrueLine catalog of WorxAudio Technologies, a division of PreSonus.
The church contracted with Force Technology Solutions of Greenfield, Indiana to design and install the new sound system.
After consulting with church management to ascertain their goals and preferences, the Force Technology Solutions team deployed two WorxAudio TrueLine X3i-P line arrays and two TL118 subwoofers.
Force Technology’s AJ Fager and Alex Moon served as the project’s design and system engineers, respectively. Ron Groves, the company’s director of business development, discussed the project.
“University Christian Church’s services are very contemporary in nature,” Groves explains. “Music plays an important role in their services. There is a praise band that includes drums, piano, keyboards, guitar, bass, and a variety of wind instruments. The instrumentalists are augmented by a four- to six-person vocal praise team. In addition to solid music reproduction capabilities, it was very important that the new sound system exhibit a high level of speech intelligibility.
“Once the necessary modifications to the gymnasium were completed, we installed the two X3i-P line arrays and the TL118 subwoofers, which are deployed in a left-right configuration over the front edge of the stage area. We chose the X3i-P line array because of its compact, all-in-one design and the fact that the single Schedule 40 pipe for the array’s suspension creates a very clean-looking setup. The pipe coupler has an exit point through which the array’s wiring can pass, and because of this, wiring is not visible from the audience perspective. The two TL118 subs are flown with aircraft cable just to the outside of the mains. We had originally spec’d a center-flown dual 18 sub, but the building’s infrastructure wouldn’t support it.”
The WorxAudio XL3i-P has a vertical throw of 40 degrees and an exceptionally broad 160-degree horizontal dispersion pattern, enabling the system to reach further to the sides than many competing systems. “We’ve been very pleased with the XL3’s wide coverage pattern, which doesn’t sacrifice sound quality or create the impression that the speakers are trying to cover too much area,” Groves reports.
“We were able to use only two XL3s to cover the entire room, whereas most competitive solutions would’ve required us to use three. The rigging hardware also made these boxes install much easier than competing systems.”
Groves is equally impressed with WorxAudio’s support services. “The folks at WorxAudio really helped us out when we needed it,” he says. “One speaker arrived with a dead amp that we suspect was damaged during shipping. The company overnighted us the replacement part, and we were up and going the very next day. That level of responsive customer service is rare these days.”
University Christian Church’s new loudspeaker system was installed during October 2014 and was placed into service in early December. Groves reports that the system has exceeded expectations.
“Our client has been very pleased with their system,” he said. “We’ve had no issues with any aspect of the install, and everything has been rock solid. Due to our great experience with these boxes and working with WorxAudio, we’ve since installed these same boxes in another venue. Our experience with WorxAudio has been extremely positive, and we look forward to continuing our relationship.”
