ATLANTA, GA and CHARLOTTE, NC – New Birth Missionary Baptist Church recently renovated its $50 million, 7,500-seat sanctuary and opened a sister church in Charlotte, N.C. Both locations have been equipped with EAW loudspeakers.
Chief engineer Mitch Donner and production manager Melvin Wood led the church's own production team in the design and installation of the systems, with assistance from Roy Drukenmiller of Rock "N" Road and EAW southeastern representative, Quest Marketing's Jim Greene.
"We have had good success with EAW in many of the systems we've done for the church," noted Donner. "We've looked at other loudspeaker options, and nothing really compares to the performance we get from the EAW speakers, especially for a building of this size."
The PA system in the Atlanta arena-style location consists of three EAW KF760 long-throw line array modules and four EAW KF761 short throw line-array modules in a flown line array on both sides of the stage, with three KF760s and four KF761s for the center array, completing an L-C-R main P.A. system.
There are 16 EAW SB1000z large format subwoofers placed eight per side. Donner chose six EAW JF80z compact full-range loudspeakers for the front fill and 22 EAW UB82 near-field loudspeakers for under-balcony fills.
Five EAW KF737 High-Q line array modules handle out-fills. In the choir area, four EAW KF730 compact line array modules hang from the ceiling, and four EAW KF650z compact array loudspeakers are used as side-fills, two per side.
The 2,500-seat Charlotte church facility presented architectural construction issues that compelled a modification to the sound system design. Structural changes meant that certain speakers had to hang lower than originally planned. Even so, the church was able to use all of the original sound system design components.
The L-C-R arrays include 18 KF730s and six EAW SB730 compact line array subwoofers with three SB1000z subwoofers on the floor for added low-end support. Six JF50z compact loudspeakers are built in to the stage edge for front fills and six JF80z loudspeakers address the under-balcony fill.
In Charlotte, the EAW DX8 DSP digital matrix mixer and DX810 DSP-based digital audio mixer and signal processors are integrated into the system, as is the EAW UX8800 digital signal processor with EAW focusing technology.
"EAW always delivers, and we're very pleased with that," said Donner.
For more information, please visit www.eaw.com.
