- Facing a unique combination of issues including patchy sound distribution, precisely focusable dual Electro-Voice XLCi loudspeaker line arrays were installed.GREENSBORO, NC--Mount Zion Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC, saw a standing-room-only attendance of 3,000 for its Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service on January 21, part of a city-wide celebration of the life and achievements of the civil rights leader. A new Electro-Voice XLCi sound system installed by local company CareySound ensured every word was heard loud and clear.
- The service at Mount Zion Church was the culmination of a full day of community activities celebrating Dr. King's life. The power-packed event at Mount Zion Baptist featured special guest artists Phillip Bryant, Lil' Mo, and multiple 2008 Stellar Award winner Dewayne Woods, backed by a 100-member community mass choir. Dr. John Guns of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, FL was the featured guest speaker. CareySound owner Ken Carey, along with vice president of sales Tommy Martin, and John Carey, HE, were on hand to handle the engineering duties for the evening.
With the new system, designer/installer Ken Carey says, "Everybody in the sold out auditorium tonight had the best seat in the house!"
Ken Carey and Stuart Schatz of Electro-Voice faced several challenges when designing the new sound system. "The ten-year-old system we replaced never really addressed the serious issues in the room," Carey said. "Aside from being very wide, this sanctuary is built back to front in comparison to an auditorium, with the tall part of the room at the front and the short part at the rear with a balcony. This arrangement effectively funnels all of the sound down into the back rows, presenting many more reflective surfaces in the process. And all this was in addition to a very loud HVAC system."The original system consisted of a very large, tightly packed left/center/right trapezoidal speaker configuration with overlapping conical horn coverage. Additionally, multiple smaller cabinets had been added to the space to try to compensate for the very patchy sound distribution in the auditorium. "They drove the system hard to address the seat-to-seat variations in coverage and the loud HVAC system," Carey added, "attempting to cover the imperfections in sound distribution in the auditorium. These high sound levels very quickly swamped the room, adding to the already complicated acoustics of the space."
service at Mt. Zion Church was the culmination of a full day of community activities celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life.
The solution to this unique combination of issues was the installation of a precisely focusable Electro-Voice XLCi loudspeaker line array. Dual 13-element line arrays, each consisting of eight XLCi127DVX boxes hung under four XLCi215 subs, flank the stage powered by eight Electro-Voice P3000RL remote supervised Precision Series Amplifiers. "Utilizing the great-sounding, high-performance, XLCi loudspeaker system with the aid of EV's powerful LAPS aiming software, we were able to design a verifiably accurate system with complete confidence," Carey said. "All of the issues created by the original 32-box, 29-amplifier system, along with the oddly shaped room and loud HVAC system, were overcome with the new system. Everybody in the sold out auditorium tonight had the best seat in the house!"
In addition to the main EV house system, a spread of new VariLine loudspeakers from Dynacord serve as stage monitors. The new wireless microphone system is the EV REV UHF System with RE410 mic capsules.
Electro-Voice...www.electrovoice.com
