With three services each Sunday—two of which are contemporary in nature— First Christian Church has a vibrant worship program that caters to a diverse congregation. After enduring lackluster performance from their sound reinforcement system for far too long, the decision was made to upgrade their sanctuary’s facilities with a WorxAudio compact line array.
Cape Coral, FL-based Creative Sound Solutions, LLC, an AV design/build firm that handles audio, video, lighting, and acoustics for the commercial and church markets, was contracted to design and implement the church’s new sound reinforcement system. Rob Robinson, general manager and co-owner, managed the First Christian Church project. He discussed the challenges that led to the deployment of the WorxAudio X3-P compact line array.
“First Christian Church’s sanctuary seats roughly 500 people and is 80 feet wide by 50 feet deep,” Robinson explained, “with the stage / pulpit area facing into the width of the room. As a result, the sanctuary is considerably wider than it is deep.
“This required a loudspeaker system with broad horizontal dispersion in order to provide consistent coverage from side to side as well as front to rear. The lack of consistent sound coverage with the previous sound system created a number of issues—most notably, the inability of the congregation to understand what was being said. Because of this, speech intelligibility was a crucial factor. Services are nowhere near as meaningful if people can’t understand what’s being said.”
“Music also plays a vital role in the church’s worship services,” he continued. “With a 5-piece praise band and a vocal team of roughly the same size, the new sound system had to have equally capable music reproduction characteristics.
“The WorxAudio X3-P line array is unique in that it is a 3-module, all-in-one compact system with extremely broad—160-degrees—horizontal dispersion and excellent music reproduction characteristics. After consulting with Hugh Sarvis at WorxAudio Technologies, we determined that a central cluster—positioned 20 feet over the pulpit area—would serve the room nicely.”
The X3-P’s throw capabilities mark a dramatic departure from conventional line array systems of this size and class. The upper two modules of the X3-P provide 10-degree vertical dispersion while the lower module delivers a 25-degree vertical pattern. Combined, the three modules create a 36-degree vertical system with an unusually broad horizontal dispersion of 160 degrees. The system is powered by WorxAudio Technologies’ highly-regarded PMD-1.5 digital power amp with built in DSP processing.
First Christian Church’s new sound reinforcement system was deployed in mid-November 2011 and was placed into service immediately thereafter. Since that time, Robinson reports the new system has had an extremely positive impact, “Because of the X3-P’s dispersion characteristics, we were able to cover every inch of the space. This system effectively eliminated the dead spots inherent in the previous sound system and, now, there is great sound quality and high speech intelligibility everywhere you sit. Ken Wagner, the church’s media director, was really impressed with the fact that no matter where he walks throughout the room, sound quality is remarkably consistent, clear, and free or dropouts. The new WorxAudio system has been generating rave reviews—and for us, that’s the best compliment of all.”
