The sound system at Trinity Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida is sophisticated for a sanctuary that seats approximately 800 congregants – it delivers LCR imaging to nearly every seat from multiple loudspeaker positions, including six time-delayed LCR zones that cover the areas farthest from the pulpit.
The system was installed by Pro Sound & Video in 2004 and, although the loudspeakers and amplifiers have held up well, the original DSP processing system that performed the complex routing and filtering did not. The processing system has now been replaced by two Symetrix Radius 12x8 Dante network audio DSPs, and their 16 combined outputs augmented with two SymNet xOut 12 audio output expansion boxes. All of the units network via Dante and replace the old analogue processing, with processing power in hand for improvements.
‘The system is really nice, with almost every seat getting a left-centre-right experience,’ says Pro Sound & Video Project Manager, Michael Frazee. ‘However, the old processing system was based on a system of five digital processors that were crosswired with analogue and AES patches to share various signals between the processors. This worked well for a long time, but one of the main processors went bad, and since the original components are out of production, it became clear that a new system would be required.
‘To say the least, the Symetrix new generation of open architecture, Dante networking processors would afford us a considerable amount of signal handling flexibility to handle the complex processing tasks required for the multi-zone LCR system.’
The new processing includes EQ, distribution, and crossovers for the various speaker zones, which are comprised of the main house system, distributed LCR systems, stage monitors, and additional recording and general distribution mixes. Two Radius 12x8 DSP and two xOut 12 audio output expansion units form one integrated processing network via Dante with 24 inputs and 40 outputs. Programming the system, despite its complexity, was straightforward using Symetrix’ Composer software.
‘Circumstances in this case necessitated my involvement at the programming level,’ Frazee says. ‘The Composer software was very predictable, but when I ran into a few snags, I contacted the tech staff at Symetrix who were very helpful in resolving programming issues.’
More: www.symetrix.co
