New Covenant Christian Community Church, Dante Installation
New Covenant Christian Community Church, Bethlehem, PA United States
New Covenant Christian Community Church (NC4) is a nondenominational house of worship with a contemporary worship style, with music playing a prominent role as a means of keeping its congregation fully engaged. To ensure the best possible sound quality for both dialog and the musical performances, the church recently upgraded their sound reinforcement system—drawing upon premium products selected from the TrueLine catalog of WorxAudio Technologies, a division of PreSonus Audio Electronics.
New Covenant Christian Community Church (NC4) is a nondenominational house of worship with a contemporary worship style, with music playing a prominent role as a means of keeping its congregation fully engaged.
To ensure the best possible sound quality for both dialog and the musical performances, the church recently upgraded their sound reinforcement system—drawing upon premium products selected from the TrueLine catalog of WorxAudio Technologies, a division of PreSonus Audio Electronics.
Horizon AVL of Blackwood, NJ was contracted to handle the deployment of NC4’s new sound system. Joshua Kell, the firm’s chief operations officer, discussed the project and his reasons for selecting WorxAudio’s TrueLine V5 passive line arrays, which on this project, are driven by the company’s recently introduced PDA-1000R power amplifiers with integrated Dante networking capability.
“The sanctuary at NC4 is 110 feet wide and 65 feet deep,” Kell reports. “This new equipment is an upgrade from the sound system they had been using for the past 18+ years. The stage faces the width of the room and the seats are moveable—enabling them to use the space in a variety of configurations.”
“The technical director at NC4, Bill Holmes, formerly the sound designer for Sight and Sound Theaters of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,” Kell continued, “heard WorxAudio at a WFX tradeshow a few years back. Holmes knew they were the loudspeakers for his church when the time came that they were ready to upgrade. Then last year during the WorxAudio road show, a mutual contact introduced us. After hearing the loudspeakers again, he went to work getting the church’s approval for the new sound system.”
Kell and the Horizon AVL team ultimately deployed eighteen loudspeakers, with each hang comprised of three WorxAudio TrueLine V5 line array enclosures. These clusters were flown around the perimeter of the stage, with two clusters facing straight out toward the audience. There were also another two clusters, each positioned over the front corners of the stage facing out toward the room’s rear corners, with the remaining two clusters positioned over the sides of the stage, with each hang facing the middle area of the opposing side walls. Holmes wanted a true stereo left and right throughout the perimeter of the venue. For low frequency support, Kell and his crew flew two WorxAudio TrueLine TL118S sub bass enclosures—with each enclosure flown over the right and left sides of the stage area behind the V5 line arrays.
Power for the WorxAudio TrueLine V5 line arrays is provided by the rack-mountable version of WorxAudio’s PDA-1000R power amp with Dante networking capability. The PDA-1000R is a 2-channel amplifier, rated at 500W per channel and 1,000W peak. The PDA-1000R also incorporates onboard DSP capability for loudspeaker management purposes.
When queried as to why the WorxAudio PDA-1000R power amps were included on this project, Kell reports that Holmes who is currently a professor and recording engineer at nearby Lehigh University had opportunity to incorporate the Dante network during a live sound/recording project on campus. Kell explained “Holmes wanted a digital audio network that was reliable and Dante was his choice—not only because of the ability to gain easy access to the audio signals for the purpose of recording programs that take place in the room, but for direct access to the amplifiers themselves. The new PDA-1000R with Dante was the perfect fit.”
The new sound reinforcement system at NC4 was completed in December 2015 and placed into service immediately after. Since that time, Kell reports everyone at the church has been very impressed. “I have received countless compliments from Bill Holmes, other church officials, and members of the congregation,” says Kell. “The clarity of the system is very impressive, which makes it much easier than before to hear every word the pastor says. Similarly, the music reproduction capabilities are excellent. The sound is big, crystal clear, and full—with even coverage throughout the entire space. Holmes said that the stereo imaging is quite definitive. This is yet another example of WorxAudio’s industry leadership. Simply put, their gear is tough to beat.”