The santuary of Summit Worship Center in Austin, TX recently received upgraded sound reinforcement to serve the parishioners in the 15,000-square-foot space (about 300 seats) with a new main system utlizing RCF line arrays and subwoofers.
When David Cherry, systems integrator and sales engineer at 5 Words Media (based in Phoenix, AZ), was approached by the center’s lead pastor, Eric Moore, about an upgrade, the conversation began with addressing the previous system, which was underpowered. “All the musicians — who are members and perform at the church — are touring professionals and deserve better sound,” says Cherry. “The church has some major talent and has a powerful gospel feel, so they wanted a new system that would showcase that talent.”
The room is wide with low ceilings, with the pastor mindful of sight lines to the platform from the outside seats in addition to accommodating the church’s video projection and lighting systems. “When the opportunity to demo a new sound system arose, we brought in Brandon Bishop from Cowser Marketing to supply an RCF HDL rig, and it did not disappoint,” Cherry states.
The 5 Words Media team set up a demo system utilizing two HDL 28-A active line arrays [each array with three modules] joined by three SUB 9004-AS active subwoofers, two underneath the arrays and one positioned at center.
“Everything out of the box was easy to set up,” Cherry notes. “With a few minor tweaks we had the system up and running in no time. We used RDNet software to fine tune the system inside an hour or so. I work exclusively with church installations and it was my first experience with RCF — it was nice to work so quickly.”
When the demo was underway, the difference in sound quality was enough to draw in church members and the pastor, and it also didn’t take long to make a decision. The RCF demo system was then permanently installed, along with a front of house console upgrade to an Allen & Heath dLive mix system.