LIGHT THE WAY CHURCH -- FINAL INSTALLATION AND REVIEW
LARGE PANORAMA SHOT OF THE ALTAR AREA CHURCH BUILD HOME

Here's the OmniTop12 (above the TV) and the Titan 39 below. The sub is wall loaded, about 12" to the mouth. We pre wired 12 ga to the Speakon jack just above the step. 4 wire to the sub. Then two wire to the stage monitors off to the left.

The band area. The four stage monitors are daisy chained along the floor. They are moved depending on who shows for the band. This would be a dead spot otherwise, but the monitors help fill in that side for the congregation as well.

The altar, sanctuary and lectern. The right top can be seen at the far right of the picture.

Here's a bit better shot of the right side. There's a large soffit to accommodate a room divider with sliding panels. Each main speaker and video screen can be independently controlled so multiple events can occur at the same time. I'd have liked to move the speakers down to just above the monitors, unfortunately there was a major gap in the supporting structure behind the drywall. The room divider was not in the original plans. Again we did a home run from this speaker back to the sound booth.

Here you can see the size of the soffit for the room divider. The back "wall" is to the right, almost entirely glass. The school classrooms are through the hall way with the exit sign.

System Sound Review and Critique

Though still a work in progress, I can honestly say this system far exceeded my expectations, and has proven to be far less troublesome than we anticipated based on the room geometry. The OmniTop12s with downtilt melded arrays were the right choice for this situation. The box size and shape are well suited for wall mounting. The SPL levels are capable of making your ears bleed, and the extra weight from the Delta Pro is a moot point -- once we got them up there. Dispersion is excellent, with consistent highs across the room. The only major dead spot is front row center where much of the high end isn't covered. This worked to our advantage as we've had virtually no feedback problems from the altar area. We equalized these and cut the 15Khz response about 4-6 dB. That eliminated a bit of a rasp from over compressed MP3s and vocalists with less than perfect microphone control. Vocals & keyboards are particularly sweet. Using the same demo disks that I use for voicing home audio, we were able to equalize the tops with minimal effort. I'd like to see them 8-10" lower on the wall, but we don't have adequate wall support to do so. We'll probably try tilting them down a couple degrees instead.

The single Titan 39 is entirely adequate for this venue. With wall loading, and a relatively central location, bass is strong throughout the room, though it drops out a bit in the far rear corner near the entrance. We haven't found any significant dead spots or cancellation nodes -- most likely due to the asymmetry of the room. The shallower 12db LR slope on the top end helped better integrate the sub & mains.

The little stage monitors have turned out to be solid performers. With limited space, and not knowing who's going to show up on any given Sunday, they are very easy to move and incorporate into the band. They also help fill in what would be a dead corner of congregation.

For the most part, nobody notices the system. The pastor's sermons don't seem to be amplified -- until his microphone fails. Most of our issues have come from people dropping microphones, or constantly changing the distance from mic to their mouthes, or wacking a stand with their instrument. Like the IT guy, the system is doing it's job when nobody realizes it's working. I don't think the two of us could have done much better for the price.

As a home audio guy, I have a better appreciation for why enginnering a live performance is so hard to do. I also realize the cost of BFD speakers is almost trivial compared to all the wire, cable, snakes, boards and connectors.