 |
Covenant Communications recently upgraded the
audio system at Lakewood Church in Houston,
Texas with an extensive selection of HARMAN
components including JBL VTX line arrays, Crown
I-Tech HD amplifiers and BSS audio
processing. (Photo Credit: Brad Ricks)
|
HOUSTON, Texas – Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, the largest “megachurch”
in the United States, recently received a complete audio upgrade to its
16,800-seat facility. Working with Shawn Mullins and Joe Smart of Houston-based
sound contractor Covenant Communications, the team designed and installed a
HARMAN audio system featuring JBL’s new VTX Series line arrays and subwoofers
along with Crown Audio I-Tech HD Series amplifiers and BSS Audio BLU-800 signal
processors.
Lakewood
Church is led by senior pastor Joel Osteen, whose broadcasts reach more than 10
million viewers worldwide every week. The Church features a large stage at the
front with floor and tiered seating all around. Lakewood Church moved into its
current location (formerly the Compaq Center) in 2005, renovating the facility
and sound system. However, as the Ministry grew in scope, over the past year
church management including Lakewood Church technical director Reed Hall and senior
audio engineers BK Beard and Brad Duryea realized the system needed to be
upgraded.
“Pastor
Joel Osteen uses a lavalier mic and moves around the stage quite a bit when
giving his sermons. He wants to reach and engage every congregant. The audio
system needs to be heard loud and clear in every part of the church,” noted
Hall. “However, the existing system was a bit deficient in headroom and because
lavaliers don’t have the output (gain before feedback) of handheld mics, it was
sometimes a challenge to get a loud enough level from Osteen’s lapel mic.
Management also felt that the coverage from the older system’s front fills was
inadequate, and that the system was deficient in upper midrange and
high-frequency clarity.”
Covenant
first demonstrated Crown IT12000HD amplifiers on a section of the existing
system. It made a “huge improvement” in headroom and clarity according to
Smart, but didn’t solve all of the existing problems. Subsequently Hall, Beard,
Duryea and Smart demoed various line array loudspeaker systems. “Nine months
ago I knew nothing about JBL VTX line arrays,” said Hall, “but once we found
out VTX was on its way we told each other we really needed to hear it.”
For
initial evaluation purposes, Hall and key members of his audio team attended a
VTX demonstration at the Forum in Los Angeles conducted by Paul Bauman, Senior
Manager, Tour Sound, JBL Professional. Next they brought VTX V25 line array
loudspeakers and competitors’ models into Lakewood Church to perform
side-by-side comparisons, and chose the V25 after extensive auditioning. All
were impressed by the high-frequency smoothness, clarity and extension of the
V25 and its D2 dual-diaphragm, dual-voice-coil compression driver, as well as
the massive amount of low-end the V25 provides, which enabled them to
ultimately reduce the number of subwoofers they had planned to deploy and allowed
them to select a 60Hz crossover point for the V25’s to achieve a better blend
between the main speakers and the subwoofers.
The
speaker complement selected for Lakewood Church includes 60 JBL VTX V25 line
array cabinets and 20 VTX S28 subwoofers, flown in four arrays: main left-right
V25 arrays of 20 enclosures each, two suspended arrays of 10 S28 subwoofers and
two side arrays with 10 V25 loudspeakers each. The main left-right arrays curve
down 90 degrees to cover from front seats all the way up to the back bowl of
the church. In addition, 26 JBL VerTec® VT4886 subcompact line array elements are employed—eight
for sound reinforcement for the choir, 12 used as outfill and six deployed as
front fill. A total of 73 Crown IT12000HD amplifiers power the entire system.
Hall
feels that Lakewood Church is the best-sounding arena in the country because of
its padded seats, sloping floor, and carpeting. However, the room has some hard
surfaces surrounding the seats and achieving a tight low end proved to be
challenging because of the existence of a number of metal-framed sheetrock
partitions that have the potential to resonate. The V25’s tightly focused
low-frequency output helped solve this issue.
Hall
also found the system much easier to setup and configure than what was
previously installed, thanks to the synergy between the JBL VTX loudspeakers,
Crown amplifiers and HARMAN’s HiQnet System Architect™ and BSS London Architect
programming software and communications protocol. When setting up the system
Beard & Duryea went through every cabinet one by one, dialed in each group
of speakers and then integrated the entire system, a process made easier by
System Architect. Additional onsite support was provided by Allan Devantier,
Manager, Objective Evaluation, HARMAN International, and Paul Bauman, and the
HARMAN Audio Test System (HATS) was employed to calibrate and tune the Lakewood
Church installation. With the improvements to the Lakewood Church audio system,
Hall feels that the large facility now offers the acoustic experience of a
4,500-seat theater.
“For
those that haven’t heard the new JBL VTX series they can’t imagine the level of
performance these speakers achieve. While JBL VerTec has long been seen as the industry standard, the VTX
technology is truly a game-changer for live sound applications,” added Smart.
“Osteen
wants the system to sound everywhere the way it sounds in the front row, and
with this system we have nailed it,” Hall concluded. “Compared to the old
system from the console, Osteen’s voice sounds 50 feet closer than it did
before.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment