As their newest campus, Kirk Crossing (www.thekirk.com/#/worship/crossing) is a worship center that carries forth the traditions of The Kirk church. The church offers a variety of programs tailored to small group study, young adult ministries, adult discipleship ministries, and senior adult ministries. The new campus opened in October 2014 and, to ensure the best possible sound reinforcement for their services, line array technology from WorxAudio® Technologies, a division of PreSonus® (www.presonus.com) was deployed.

Nashville, TN-based J Sound Services, a design-build firm specializing in acoustics, audio visual, broadcast, lighting, and integrated control systems for the commercial, studio, and House of Worship markets, was contracted to design and install the church’s new sound system. After consulting with church officials, the decision was made to install a combination of loudspeaker products from WorxAudio’s TrueLine catalog. These loudspeaker systems included two XL5i-P line arrays, two XQ10i-P extended bass loudspeakers, and four TL118i-P sub bass enclosures. Jason Spence, President of J Sound Services and the company’s principal system design engineer, discussed the project.

“Kirk Crossing is the church’s second location,” Spence explained. “This sanctuary is brand new, so every aspect of their AV system was very carefully considered. Music plays a vital role in Kirk Crossing’s contemporary services. The church’s praise band includes drums, bass, electric and acoustic guitars, a B3 organ, a Wurlitzer electric piano, keyboards, and vocals. The room was designed acoustically to also accommodate orchestras, choirs, etc.—with simultaneous reinforcement of the praise band from the sound reinforcement system. With this level of music activity, it was essential that the sound system provide natural sounding music reproduction with lots of punch, in addition to a high level of clarity for speech.”

The church’s sanctuary measures approximately 100 feet deep, 70 feet wide, with a ceiling height of 35 feet. Seating capacity is roughly 500. The main loudspeaker arrays consist of a pair of WorxAudio XQ10i-P sub-bass enclosures positioned one each atop a pair of XL5i-P high efficiency line arrays. The system is configured in stereo with the main arrays flown left and right off center, at approximately a 26-foot trim height and even with the front edge of the curved stage. For low frequency support, the subwoofer array consists of four TL118i-P subwoofers flown above center stage and configured as an end-fire array. This creates a controllable cardioid pattern of the sub frequencies; minimizing unnecessary low frequency information on stage while maximizing the energy into the room.

“This loudspeaker configuration is just one of the ways we managed to provide a high level of speech intelligibility throughout the room,” Spence reports. “Another key attribute of this particular loudspeaker setup is the XL5i-P’s 160-degrees of horizontal dispersion and 40 degrees of vertical dispersion. The XL5 easily gave us enough horsepower and headroom to throw to the back of the sanctuary, was wide enough to cover the width of the room while, at the same time, hit the center seats in the very front row—all without the need for fill speakers of any type. This significantly reduced the audio budget and reduced construction costs by eliminating additional infrastructure. Equally important, as the XL5 consists of five line array elements in a single enclosure, the design simplified installation. With its standard rigging hardware, this made for an easy installation that also saved us a lot of time.”

Capable and responsive customer and technical support services are crucial considerations for any AV integration firm because, when questions arise, time is money. In this regard, Spence found the WorxAudio team to be best in class. “We experienced an issue with one of the power amp modules,” Spence reports. “Upon contacting WorxAudio, we received a quick and timely response. They ended up overnighting a replacement amplifier module so we were up and running in no time, with no charge to The Kirk.”

With The Kirk’s new sound system fully operational, Spence reflected on the project, “This is one of the best sounding installations we’ve ever completed. The sum of the acoustical design, WorxAudio loudspeakers, and how the equipment was designed and deployed has provided one of the most articulate, full-range and impactful audio systems I’ve ever encountered. The Kirk continues to receive compliments from the congregation. In fact, one of the church members recently stated, ‘For the first time in 20 years, I could understand everything the pastor said. I enjoyed every aspect of the service, and all without my hearing aids.’ I honestly don’t know if it gets any better than that.”