New Life Church, a hexagon-shaped church in Colorado Springs, CO, needed a new loudspeaker system for their room that serves 5,000-7,000 people.
Having not been replaced since it was first installed over 20 years ago with the construction of the building, it was long overdue. Their top priority for their new system was smooth, even coverage—specifically front-to-back and side-to-side.
With the loudspeaker system being mission-critical to their church’s function, we phased electrical infrastructure first, and then installed, commissioned, turned, and trained a complete system in only 1 week—between Sundays.
A central stage setup spans 300°, with the audience nearly surrounding it.
To support this type of space, we needed to intentionally design and integrate the loudspeaker line arrays for minimal overlap (think two flashlights shining in the same spot from different angles) to prevent the sound waves from colliding with one another in the area they share.
This is important because when those signals do collide, they can either boost each other (constructive interference) or cancel each other out (destructive interference). This back and forth causes an uneven sound experience called comb filtering—because on a graph, the pattern resembles the teeth of a comb.
To avoid this, we used Meyer Sound LYON line arrays with 1100-LFC subwoofers suspended in gradient arrays for each of the five sections of the hexagon-shaped room, which created microphone-like directional patterns and even audio clarity. The cardioid pattern created for the subwoofers (named after its heart shape, with the two lopes facing outward at the audience and the tail up against the musicians) focuses sound waves toward the seating area while minimizing sound from the sides and rear.
This effectively reduced the unwanted background noise and feedback, bleed from instruments, and improved musician and presenter performance.
To achieve an even, intentional, and immersive audio experience and avoid comb filtering, we chose phase linear loudspeakers from Meyer Sound.
Because these loudspeakers offer more control over sound direction, they offer natural sound reproduction and minimize the decrease in sound volume as the distance from the speakers increases—which is key in a larger space like this one.
As an added layer of intentionality, the entire PA system was suspended from chain hoists that can be lowered for maintenance. And we created a hexagon-shaped infrastructure so the subwoofers can be lowered and placed on the floor for multi-purpose events.
We also integrated the Meyer RMS system to provide complete remote monitoring of every loudspeaker in the system (65 total). This communicates how each individual element is performing and indicates any problems.