Woodstream Church’s musical ministry in Maryland, US, houses a band and choir every Sunday and now amplifies the beautiful melodies with a full L-Acoustics amplifier and loudspeaker system.
Prior to the recent system retrofit, the church suffered from uneven coverage with sound getting lost at the edges of the room and under the balcony, so to breathe new life into the sanctuary, the ministry called upon AV systems integrator RCI Systems, which turned to L-Acoustics’ acoustical simulation software, SoundVision, to provide a solution. According to RCI designer Bob Capotosto, the ideal remedy predicted was achieved with a combination of the manufacturer’s ARCS WIFO – WIDE and FOCUS – and coaxial XT product ranges. “SoundVision gives us an accurate picture of what we’ll need in terms of components to get a complex project like this successfully completed,’ he says.
Today, the sanctuary’s main system uses an LCR arrangement of three arrays each comprised of two SB18m subs, two ARCS WIDE and two ARCS FOCUS enclosures. Ten compact 8XTi individually spread out just under the lip of the balcony deliver blanketed audio coverage to the rear sanctuary seats, while a single ultra-compact 5XT at each far edge of the underbalcony ensures optimum coverage to even the furthest corner seating areas. The entire loudspeaker system is powered and processed by a total of five LA8 amplified controllers.
Capotosto notes that the L-Acoustics WIFO system, in particular, was ideal in that it is remarkably lightweight for its power, which minimised the amount of additional steel bracing required for the new hang points in the sanctuary’s ceiling. He also cites the tight directivity patterns and full range performance of the arrays as instrumental in being the right choice for the tall, fan-shaped space.
“All of the coverage and intelligibility issues that the church had been experiencing are now gone. And the WIFO solution was affordable for the church, giving them all the power they need and with a substantial amount of headroom left to go. Also, the underbalcony area, which had been the hardest problem in the past to solve, is now completely addressed with coherent sound from the stage’s backline to the last row of the house. The church’s FOH engineer said we’ve made his job much easier. That’s the best compliment you can get.’
