First Christian Church in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, recently recalled JCA Media to manage the latest upgrade to its campus – a Martin Audio main PA system and ceiling speaker installation in the church’s worship areas, classrooms and children’s play areas.
‘The tech directors were already familiar with Martin Audio and we always rely on their systems for these types of installations,’ explains JCA Media Integration Specialist, Alex Peake. ‘For this project, the CDDs merged together so beautifully within the main worship area and it was great to see the stage arches accommodating those types of cabinets so well.’
JCA Media installed three Martin Audio CDD10s as LCR speakers alongside a pair of SX112 subs flown above the stage to deliver smooth, even coverage across the space. Because the Church didn’t want anyone, particularly children, to be near any of the cables, the decision was made to fly the PA above the stage. The black ceiling blended in with the all black PA system meaning it essentially disappeared into it – creating a slick, crowd-pleasing aesthetic.
‘The ability to blend into the background is so important for church projects as you don’t want to take the attention away from the congregation’s experience,’ Peake says. ‘This also meant that, while the PA was hidden, the visuals were able to take over. There are four Laser projectors – two of them environmental and two of them for the lyrics and content and then some flashy lighting effects for the kids’ area. They wanted all of the audio to disappear so the house lights could create this remarkable atmosphere.’
Away from the main worship space, a single CDD12 covers another worship area and a pair of CDD6s serve the children’s play area. Fitted with a high-spec transformer, the Martin Audio Ceiling Series is able to be used in either a 70V or 100V operation via a front mounted rotary switch – providing a simplified installation process for the JCA Media team. ‘The Ceiling Series is by far our favourite for that level of quality in that price range and we use them every chance we get,’ Peake says.
To cope with emergency situations, JCA Media also connected the system to a mic at front-of-house so the whole wing would duck to that channel when an announcement needed to be made. ‘If you needed to make an emergency announcement across all the rooms, even if one was playing music or another had a movie playing, it would stop everything and make the announcement the priority,’ Peake addds. ‘I think that’s a really valuable element to have.’
Peake recalls his reaction to hearing the solution in action for the first time: ‘When we fired it up, we were all just as giddy as could be – it was phenomenal. We hadn’t even tuned the room yet because we were not finished with laying down the carpets and such, but we were all thinking that nothing needed to be changed at all, and were able to call it a day right there and then.’
More: www.martin-audio.com
