Right in the heart of Music Row in Nashville, the non-denominational Belmont Church, now streaming through Belmont.TV due to COVID-19, was recently outfitted with new d&b audiotechnik A-Series augmented arrays thanks to the installation talents of Spectrum Sound, Nashville.

From its humble beginnings in 1911 as a revival tent meeting hall, the church officially broke ground in 1915, and 100+ years later they are still at the same location. The 900-seat contemporary church underwent a complete audio system renovation to the church’s main sanctuary sound reinforcement system, recording studio, and broadcast audio-for-video infrastructure.  The new A-Series forms the heart of the sound reinforcement system for the main sanctuary.

“The last time Belmont Church’s main worship space sound system was renovated was nearly 20 years ago, so it was time,” states Ken DeBelius, System Integration Sales Manager, Spectrum Sound. “As far as the room and interior design of the space, although it feels small, it does have a nice intimate setting. The geometric room layout posed significant challenges for a loudspeaker system design that would provide appropriate coverage uniformity to all the seating planes.  The main concerns of the room were the asymmetric layout of the main floor seating around the stage, and a large, steep raked balcony, which not only shadowed significant portions of the main floor, but the balcony area itself is also asymmetric.  A line array solution was out of the question; the room wasn’t nearly large enough to justify, and line arrays would create unacceptable sightline issues.  That left a point source loudspeaker solution, still not ideal, particularly with obtaining the considerable vertical coverage needed, and how it would look overall rigging-wise.”