With weekly attendance topping 46,000, LifeChurch.tv is, by many counts, the largest church in the country.
Stereo clusters of Danley Sound Labs SH-50 full-range loudspeakers deliver the full impact of the band and convey spoken word and video playback with crystalline intelligibility.It has 18 physical campuses stretching from New York to Florida and back to its headquarters in Oklahoma. As one might guess from its embrace of the “.tv” suffix, LifeChurch. tv also has a vibrant online presence, including a weekly online service and a virtual church in the online virtual world Second Life. Its Jenks, OK location recently opened its doors and welcomed new members (or in LifeChurch.tv’s parlance, “partners”) to a progressive church experience anchored by a dynamic live band. As in many of the more recent LifeChurch. tv locations, stereo clusters of Danley Sound Labs SH-50 full-range loudspeakers deliver the full impact of the band and convey spoken word and video playback with crystalline intelligibility.
Summit Integrated Systems of Lafayette, CO began working with LifeChurch.tv six years ago and has designed and installed the AV systems at most of the campus locations. “The fact that LifeChurch.tv continues to build new campuses has given us the opportunity to critique and grow with each design/build project,” explained Shane Beeson, church relationship manager and director of sales and marketing at Summit Integrated Systems. “After every project, we meet with the LifeChurch.tv technical staff to evaluate the systems and discuss what we can improve upon. Danley Sound Lab products have been a part of Summit’s product line since Danley launched in 2005, and Danley became a part of the LifeChurch. tv conversation five years ago. We were exploring ways to improve the audio quality of their multi-site campuses while still being mindful of budget and to meet their request for a stereo system using point-source boxes.”
Although LifeChurch.tv requests stereo coverage of the worship auditorium at most sites, it also typically compromises on the architecture such that the ceiling height is lower than would be optimal. “Like every church, LifeChurch.tv operates within a budget,” said Beeson. “The ceiling height makes it challenging to get the right coverage and impact. Moreover, acoustic treatment is usually the minimum needed to get the space up and running. That was the case at Jenks, so we designed two three-box clusters of Danley SH-50s. The supreme pattern control and smooth phase response of the Danley SH-50 gave us the control we needed for excellent coverage of the seats and minimal coverage of the walls. Danley’s innovative solution allowed us to increase performance and offset budget challenges by using a loudspeaker product with maximum pattern control to keep the sound in the seating areas without overexciting the room reflections.” In addition, Beeson noted that because the Danley SH-50 is passive, it required a minimum number of processor and amplifier channels, which helped the project to stay on budget.
The Jenks system begins with a Yamaha CL5 paired with RIO stage boxes, which act as a digital snake and patch bay to collect inputs from the stage. The output from the CL5 feeds a Biamp AudiaFLEX, which handles loudspeaker management and processing. Lab.gruppen C-Series amplifiers power the system. Mounted at the 17-foot ceiling height, three close-packed Danley SH-50s per side provide the main stereo coverage for the room with 40 feet between them. Four subs provide low-frequency extension from below the stage. Six Danley SH-Mini loudspeakers complete the system by providing side-fill at the edge of each cluster and front-fill from the edge of a portable stage when needed.
