The 1,500-seat Old Apostolic Church Christian Church at Mayfield Park in Gauteng, South Africa has recently seen the installation of a sound system in its new sanctuary. Working from the OAC’s specifications, local distributor Audiosure and JRTL Projects handled the installation and commissioning of a Martin Audio OmniLine loudspeaker system.

With Audiosure’s Thys Venter overseeing the project, OmniLine first needed to meet a number of key criteria aside from the quoted specifications, including technical output, price, quality and warranty, before being chosen to handle the traditional twice-a-week service regime. The design was based on a single central hang, comprising 12 OmniLine elements. In addition, eight Martin Audio architectural AQ8 were specified – two for balcony fill and the remaining six for under-balcony fill.

The project team faced a number of challenges, not least following the sudden decision to lower the ceiling height: ‘We had to rig the OmniLine at the same height in order to maintain sightlines and keep within the proscenium limits,’ explains Brendan Venter, Audiosure’s Commercial A/V Division Project Manager. ‘The ceiling was closer to the hang than intended but OmniLine performed extremely well in maintaining its directivity and keeping sound off reflective surfaces.’

Audiosure worked closely with the manufacturer to ensure that the system was correctly optimised: ‘The original design was carried out in Ease and the OmniLine software, and then Peter Child, Martin Audio’s Applications Engineer, refined the design using both software platforms to prove its performance.’

Audiosure then performed measurement tests, and tuned the system for voicing and room interaction via the dual channel FFT platform.

Source inputs to the system include a lectern gooseneck mic, a radio handheld mic, radio ear set and two wired mics on stands. An additional six radio mics are provided for when the church is operating in theatre mode. There are also organ and aux inputs – the latter to accommodate a separate mixer to handle radio packs for plays – while further floor input boxes have increased the versatility of the operation. Control is via a simple wall panel remote, allowing system on/off, lectern mic on/mute and Sidechain level control, while all other parameters have been optimised in the DSP.

‘The OmniLine system is the clear winner here,’ says Venter. ‘System response and directivity control have afforded speech intelligibility that is second to none. The frequency response across various measurement positions confirms that uniform coverage has been achieved, as predicted by the OmniLine software.

‘This has not only proven the accuracy of designing a system on the drawing board – but has also made my measurement chops look good,’ he concludes.

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