RICHLAND, WA — CCI Solutions designed and installed a new sound system for Columbia Community Church, which had completely remodeled its multi-venue, 1,800-capacity church facility here. The P.A. system centers on a pair of Tannoy VQNET 100 loudspeakers and a VNET 215HL subwoofer flown between them.
More details from Tannoy (www.tannoy.com) and TC Group Americas (www.tcgroup-americas.com):
When first established in 1947, Columbia Community Church’s services in Richland, Washington, consisted of a humble home prayer meeting. However, since then the church has grown substantially, becoming a thriving family of over 1,000 parishioners united in their efforts to attract worshippers from a variety of diverse backgrounds with their modern, high-impact style of worship.
Completed in September 2012, the installation came on the heels of a complete remodeling of the Columbia’s existing worship space, says Mark Pearson, Senior Systems Consultant at CCI Solutions, who designed and installed the Tannoy-centric system at Columbia. “They pulled out the pews, the carpeting, the pre-existing lighting and installed new truss, lights, video and audio systems.”
“This is a multi-venue facility with a capacity of 1800,” explains Matt Schofstoll, Columbia’s Technical Director. “So each venue has a separate worship service which switches partway through to a live broadcast from our main room.”
CCI was tasked with bringing that room up to date with a system that would provide crystal clear speech reinforcement and suit the needs of Columbia’s evolving music program, which features a full electric praise band. To provide that, CCI designed a compact, powerful system comprised of a pair of Tannoy VQNET 100 full range, three-way loudspeakers, flown roughly 24’ high and 10’ apart as mains, and a VNET 215HL subwoofer flown between them. The loudspeakers are controlled via Tannoy’s VNET USB/RS232 Interface, which was critical, Pearson adds, to providing the church with the ability to shut the system down easily.
“We honed in on Tannoy as the best option to provide articulate sound, a lot of power and impact,” Pearson says, adding that he chose the VQNET 100s for their compact footprint, high output capability, pattern control and ability to provide optimal coverage throughout the room, vertically and horizontally. The system also addressed some acoustical challenges in the space, as Pearson continues: “The sanctuary has some interesting acoustical challenges in terms of low frequencies, but with the Tannoy solution, the low end is tight, punchy and, for the first time, there’s even low frequency reinforcement throughout the entire room.”
Prior to this install, Schofstoll was unfamiliar with Tannoy. “But there was another church in town that had VQNET 100s,” he says, “and I really liked their clarity and consistency. With just those three loudspeakers, the sound is consistent and the response has been amazing. People are saying that this is the kind of place even people who don’t go to church regularly would want to come to and worship.”
Based in Olympia, WA, CCI Solutions offers acoustic, audio, video and lighting consulting and installation services for churches, public facilities and a variety of other applications. In his 15 years at CCI, Mark Pearson has consulted on projects ranging from small houses of worship to mega churches and major sporting venues like Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners.
