From humble beginnings in 1995, La Familia de Dios is a Christian church that has become a hub of the Hispanic community in Ontario, California. Today, weekly services typically command a congregation of 2,000 who are served by a recently upgraded sound reinforcement system with loudspeakers from DAS Audio.

Linear Production handled the installation of 12 DAS Audio Event 208A 3-way active line array elements, two Event 218A high performance powered subwoofers, and a DSP-4080 stereo/mono processor for loudspeaker management.

‘La Familia de Dios has both traditional and contemporary services and, because of this, it was critically important that both the speech intelligibility and music reproduction characteristics of the new sound system were first rate’ says Sean Sheridan, who serves as the company’s owner, system designer and project manager. ‘Music plays a very important role in the services – there is have a praise band that really gets people into the spirit of the moment and so we wanted to ensure the music comes across the way it should.’

The line arrays are flown six elements per side over the right and left front edges of the stage area. These clusters are spaced 40 feet apart and are flown at a height of 28 feet. The distance from the two line array clusters to the back wall of the sanctuary is 96 feet. The space accommodates 850 worshippers between the main floor and the rear balcony. Seating is in the form of traditional fixed pews.

For low-frequency support, two Event 218A active subwoofers have been installed on the left and right edges of the stage. The enclosure incorporates dual 18-inch transducers with 4-inch voice coils and the enclosure employs a front-loaded bass reflex configuration. Rounding out the system, Sheridan used a DSP-4080 processor for loudspeaker management. This unit features nine full bandwidth parametric EQ bands that are available on every output and crossover filters on each output offer 48dB/octave response.

‘The Event208As have even coverage vertically from the top of the balcony to the floor seating area,’ he says. ‘In terms of their horizontal dispersion, you can hear both line arrays across the room – providing a true stereo sound but still enough control to keep the energy off the walls. The Event 208A is a very even sounding speaker throughout the frequency range. The throw is great for a dual 8-inch line array. Equally noteworthy, the system’s integrated rigging hardware is well designed and very easy to use. These loudspeakers are very predictable and consistent, which is what you want from a line array.’

Since its installation, Sheridan reports the equipment is being very well received: ‘The performance has been ‘great,’ he says. ‘The church is super happy with the sound and characteristics of the system. You can hear every word clearly from any seat in the room and, musically, it delivers a warm and punchy sound. This project has been a win-win for everyone involved.’