A significant upgrade of its technical system has seen the Tempe campus of Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona install a Martin Audio MLA Compact line array, alongside components from Soundcraft and Sennheiser.

‘Sun Valley Tempe merged with Bethany Church two-and-a-half years ago, and we inherited a large campus and an auditorium with technical capabilities that were deficient by today’s standards,’ Sun Valley Technical Director, Eric Johnson, explains.

‘The audio system was old and primarily designed for natural speech, orchestra and choir reinforcement in an acoustic setting. That, plus the building is a complex geometrical design –a pentagon with a seven-sided auditorium that’s about 160° wide – has a raked floor, many complex angles and no parallel surfaces. Needless to say, this presented a real challenge when it came to choosing a new loudspeaker system.

‘The original system had worked for many years, but changing times, culture and styles made us realise that it no longer served our purposes for electric rock-and-roll style music,’ he continues, ‘We decided on a major renovation that involved changing the seating from traditional pews to modern theatre style seats and going from a totally carpeted floor to carpeting only in the aisles. We also reduced the size of the stage, pulling back the downstage edge by about 12ft in addition to upgrading the lighting and audio system.

‘There was also a real concern as to whether or not we could put in a system that would adequately reinforce rock and roll without overwhelming the live-sounding room. So we discussed acoustically treating the room, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or completely tearing down the ceiling and remodelling the room from the inside, which wasn’t feasible either.’

Having heard the Martin Audio MLA system several years ago during a demo at Comerica Theater in downtown Phoenix, Johnson felt he knew what was needed: ‘I had an idea of what the technology was about,’ he agrees. ‘And I was really impressed with what I heard. The possibility of MLA and the MLA Compact system specifically, led us to realise that the technology would allow us to precisely control the audio output and put the energy onto the seats while keeping it off the ceilings and walls. So that’s the direction we decided to pursue.’

The installed system for the 1,300-seat auditorium comprises nine MLA Compact enclosures per side in left-right hangs, with seven Martin Audio DSX subs in bunkers arranged in arc formation along the downstage edge. Two WT3 speakers provide extreme left and right out fill, and there are six DD6 speakers for front fill, with Martin Audio MA3.0 and MA2.8Q amplifiers and a Merlin Processor to manages the fills, as well as communications between the speakers. The rest of the set-up includes a Soundcraft MH2 40-channel mixing console at FOH, Sennheiser Evolution Series wireless and DPA microphones.

Johnson adds that the installation team, which included Ed Crippen from Clark, the system integration company, Jon Hunsacker and Kevin Hull from SVCC and Sean Stinson’s ream of riggers from Clearwing, had to bring in a considerable amount of additional power to accommodate the new lights and audio system since the building was already over capacity for electrical service.

The system debuted on Palm Sunday: ‘It was an overwhelming success,’ Johnson reports. ‘Ed Crippen was there for the whole weekend, which included rehearsals and the first service. He was taking measurements for the service and one of the things we discovered during the sermon was that real-time intelligibility readings were off the charts. He had never seen intelligibility readings that high. The first time our pastor Chad Moore, who uses hearing aids, stepped on the stage and spoke through the microphone he said, ‘I can finally hear myself.’

‘There was a band playing that averaged between 95dB and 104dB with subs which was clear and not too loud. With the MLA Compact, the musicians can now focus on the nuances and subtleties of their music that can finally be heard without overwhelming the space. I even had to adjust the drummer’s toms because we could hear them rattling against the support post.

‘When we went to the portion with just the pastor speaking downstage, we averaged 72dB over a ten minute window. Not only was it loud enough, it was incredibly clear and you felt as if he was talking right in front of you at 72dB. It’s unheard of to put a message out at that volume and not suffer any fatigue because it’s not loud enough. We’re still talking about that one…’

Johnson notes that the overall process of assembling the system took the better portion of a year and required that he put the installer and speaker company together because ‘Clark was not a Martin Audio dealer and I wanted MLA Compact in the building. Ed and I attended an MLA training class in Las Vegas and that’s when he really lit up and got what the system was all about. It turned out to be a full-fledged collaboration between Sun Valley, Clark and Martin Audio’.

‘One notable thing that happened on the first Sunday we used system is that the doors from the worship centre out to the lobby are usually opened up when it’s time to come in the room, but it was a nice day so the exterior doors from the lobby out to the patio were also open,’ Johnson adds. ‘One person commented that the reason he came in was that when the music started, he could hear our worship leader as clear as a bell all the way out onto the patio, which we could never do before the MLA Compact.’