Working under a guiding theme ‘Advancing His Kingdom’, Unity Free Will Baptist Church recently completed a major construction project that resulted in a brand new facility.
With Senior Pastor Jeff Manning guiding the church’s various programs, the new facility brings an unprecedented level of opportunity for all who worship there. Music plays a vital role in the church’s worship services and, recognising the importance of audio quality as a means of engaging and motivating the congregation, church management elected to deploy world class audio equipment throughout the complex; all of it drawn from the catalog of WorxAudio Technologies, a division of PreSonus Audio Electronics.
Hi-Tech Electronics of Greenville, NC, an AV design / build firm with a focus on the installation market, was contracted to design and install the various systems at Unity Free Will Baptist Church. After consulting with church management to assess their goals and expectations, company owner David Williams and his team selected a variety of loudspeakers drawn primarily from WorxAudio’s TrueLine and UltraMax product lines.
David explained in further detail: “Unity Free Will Baptist Church has WorxAudio loudspeaker systems throughout the complex. While the new sanctuary was the largest part of this project, there are also loudspeaker systems in several secondary rooms that provide the church with numerous options.”
In the sanctuary, the Hi-Tech Electronics team placed a total of sixteen WorxAudio XL1i-P compact line array enclosures finished in white; each with dual 8-inch LF transducers coupled with a 1.4-inch exit HF driver. These two flown loudspeaker clusters make up the left and right sides of the stage area and are comprised of eight modules each. Positioned over the front centre of the stage, there are five white V5T-P line array elements – each with a 1-inch exit compression driver mated to dual 5-inch cone transducers. A single XL1M-P loudspeaker enclosure mounted on the rear of the center loudspeaker cluster faces down onto the stage and serves as a monitor system for the choir. Additionally, two Wave Series 8M-P floor monitors complete the loudspeaker assortment.
For low frequency support, David and his crew deployed two WorxAudio UW118S-P subwoofers, finished in black. These two enclosures reside on the floor in front of the stage. The WorxAudio UW118S is a powered sub bass system utilizing a single 18-inch transducer housed in a Baltic Birch enclosure.
When queried about those attributes that made the WorxAudio XL1i-P and V5T-P line array systems the ideal solution for this project, David offered the following thoughts: “The V5T-P line offers a 120-degree horizontal dispersion pattern while the XL1i-P arrays offer 160-degree horizontal dispersion. This is an unusually broad dispersion pattern for any line array system and it does wonders for providing even coverage throughout the space. Combined with WorxAudio’s exemplary music reproduction characteristics and high level of speech intelligibility, the system delivers terrific sound no matter where one happens to be seated.”
In addition to the sanctuary, the Hi-Tech Electronics team also placed a ceiling mounted WorxAudio V5M-P line array loudspeaker in the choir’s rehearsal room and a ceiling mounted X1Mi-P dual 8-inch monitor system in the youth activities room. For the Fellowship mall – the main entrance to church’s sanctuary – there is a ceiling mounted X3i-P all-in-one three-element compact line array. This space can be used as an overflow area for the sanctuary. In the Family Life Center / Gymnasium, there is another X3i-P line array system. Lastly, there are two WorxAudio I/O-4 small format surface mount loudspeaker systems that reside in each of three classrooms.
The Unity Free Will Baptist Church project was a major undertaking that required close consultation with WorxAudio’s customer and technical support staff. David reported being very pleased with the assistance he received.
David provided additional comments: “The entire WorxAudio support team had our back every step of the way. Hugh Sarvis was extremely helpful. He made loudspeaker selection recommendations, helped us with the acoustic modeling of the setup in the sanctuary, and answered any and all questions we threw at him. WorxAudio knows how to take great care of their customers.
Unity Free Will Baptist Church’s new church was completed in December 2015. Since that time, David reports both church management and the congregation have responded very favourably to the WorxAudio equipment.
Kevin Justice, the church’s Pastor of Worship and Administration, echoed David’ assessment: “After working with David Williams on several small projects and then listening to a full sound system he installed at another area church, I was convinced he was the person to coordinate and install our new SR setup.
“I have not been disappointed. The clarity and distribution of the WorxAudio loudspeaker systems has been everything he promised. Numerous people in our congregation have remarked that they are able to hear both the music and the spoken word with great clarity—even at lower volume levels.”
