The team at the Living Water Bible Fellowship in Alamosa, Colorado, had been frustrated by their inability to deliver a transparent, distraction-free service. The first issue was that the pastor could not get his microphone loud enough before encountering feedback, and the second was a lack of intelligibility regardless of sound level. Local integration firm Lambda Audio Visual has saved the day using a new Danley Sound Labs sound reinforcement system that did away with both issues via incredible pattern control and phase-coherent, point-source fidelity.
‘Living Water Bible Fellowship contacted us looking for some ideas to help improve the sound system in their main worship room,’ says Lambda Audio Video owner, Ryan Durbin. ‘We visited to check out their system and immediately noticed the unique shape and orientation of the room. It’s a rectangle with a peaked ceiling, with the stage set up on a long wall. There are balconies on both sides that look down on the stage from above. The space fits about 150 people. The orientation and loudspeaker placement created a “boomy” reverberant sound in the main worship area. They were having a lot of difficulties producing defined sounds. Moreover, the room shape and a soffit area above the stage left no obvious place to put a loudspeaker for general coverage.’
Durbin worked with his CAD designer to model the best options given the circumstances: ‘We started looking for the right solutions with Danley, our favourite speaker manufacturer,’ Durbin says. ‘Danley excels in pattern control across all of their designs, but the Danley SBH20LF column loudspeaker is especially appropriate for a situation like the one at Living Water. It has a thin profile and covers an area of 120° horizontal by 20° vertical. This allowed us to use a completely different location for speaker placement. Instead of going above the stage, we used the left and right sides of the stage. They cover the entire main level and nothing else.’
As proof-of-concept, the Lambda team brought a SBH20LF to Living Water and demonstrated its musicality, intelligibility, and vastly better gain-before-feedback. The installation was completed with a pair of THmini subwoofers with plenty of oomph for a room that size, along with a (slightly) delayed SM100 loudspeaker on each side of the room to cover the balcony.
‘Living Water was concerned about the look of the speakers to the room,’ Durbin says. ‘We wanted the new system to visually fade away. We wanted it to be noticed by the quality of sound, not by the distraction of the aesthetics. So, we got the room’s paint code and did a custom order with Danley. This is an especially neat service.
‘Danley can do any custom paint colour from Sherwin Williams so all the speakers will match the colour of the room or its accents. They look amazing by not looking’ much at all. A new PreSonus 24SX 32-channel console with a PreSonus 24r rack mixer and a handful of acoustic panels against the back wall completed the installation.
‘We have had many good comments on the system, from “no reverb in the corners like we had before” to “I can hear the guitar on the opposite side of the room for the first time” and “the sound from the stage is now more like a conversation than being talked down to”,’ reports Dale Myers at Living Water Bible Fellowship.
More: www.danleysoundlabs.com
