A recent sound reinforcement upgrade at King of Kings Lutheran Church in suburban Woodbury, MN to eliminate uneven coverage while improving clarity and fidelity for both contemporary and traditional worship services utilizes loudspeakers from Electro-Voice powered and processed by electronics from Dynacord.
“We do a wide range of commercial contracting, often working with Electro-Voice, and it has become my go-to brand for larger spaces like churches,” says project manager Shawn Withrow of Saint Paul-based Collins Electrical Construction, which had also recently installed a new lighting system at the church. “We were confident that it was really just a matter of finding the right system to fit the space. For King of Kings, that turned out to be EVA line arrays.”
According to Chris Vorrie, director of worship arts at the church, the decision on a new system happened several months prior to the pandemic, driven by a desire for greater clarity. “With our previous system, the ability to understand the words varied depending on where you were sitting,” he explains. “We needed consistent, highly intelligible sound throughout the nave.”
Withrow contacted regional sales manager Dave Notch to arrange a loudspeaker demo, incorporating the latest electronics from Dynacord. “The demo made King of Kings comfortable with the EVA system, and it’s also why they decided to upgrade to flown dual 18-inch subwoofers.”
The Electro-Voice and Dynacord in-house system design team assisted Collins Electrical in finalizing the deployment details, using EASE mapping software in combination with Dynacord SONICUE sound system software to help attain even coverage throughout the sanctuary. Local company Twin Cities Sound was engaged to handle the physical hanging of the loudspeakers.
The right and left hangs in the primary system each consist of two EVA-2082S 90-degree horizontal dispersion cabinets atop a pair of 120-degree models to cover the main seating area. EVA cabinets contain two fixed-splay loudspeaker modules, which means that each hang comprises a total of eight line-array elements. Splay angles are determined by the specific choice of models. The cabinets are mechanically connected with rigging plates that are concealed by cosmetic panels. In addition, the system benefits from newly-released DSP settings that further enhance acoustical performance and a newly implemented hybrid limiter designed to maximize system output.
To cover the side seating areas and choir loft, one Electro-Voice EVF-1122S is angled to each side and two X12i-128 subwoofers are flown further out above the congregation. All the loudspeakers are finished in white. The system is powered by two Dynacord DSP power amplifiers, with an IPX20:4 handling the arrays and subs and a single C2800FDi supplies the EVFs.
“We really love the sound of the new system,” adds Vorrie. “Musically, everything is enhanced and sounds so much better than before – and we actually eliminated multiple fill speakers in the process. Everything is consistent now, and both the spoken word and lyrics are much easier to understand, no matter where you sit.”