YAKIMA, WA – Since launching in 2009, EV-Innovation loudspeakers have become among the company's most in-demand products for permanent installation, according to Electro-Voice, which attributes that popularity to a combination of audio quality, versatility and value.
Lift AV, Renton, Wash., has been installing all three model types currently available from the EV-Innovation family – EVA (Expandable Vertical Array), EVF (front-loaded), and EVH (horn-loaded) – into complete AV design/installation projects at houses of worship in their region.
Justin Friesen of Lift AV described two such recent projects in Yakima, Wash. – one of which, at Stone Church, is one of the first U.S. installations to utilize all three EV-I models at a single site.
"Stone Church was a full sanctuary remodel with an extensive audio, video, and lighting installation," Friesen said. "This is a balconied auditorium of approximately 1,200 seats, and the church required even coverage from the front half of the stage all the way back to the far corners. Line arrays were the obvious choice, and we wanted to put in the very best-sounding and most flexible system possible, and all at a reasonable budget. The EVA (Expandable Vertical Array) made a strong impression on us at last year's InfoComm show; beyond excellent audio quality, it offers really amazing value – especially considering how few amplifiers are required to power the system."
The main sound system at Stone Church features arrays of six EVA-2082S elements per side – each including five 120-by-6-degree and one 120-by-20-degree element – with an EVH-1152S/66 (60-by-60-degree horn-loaded 15-inch two-way) for center down-fill.
Four Tour X dual-18-inch subwoofers, meanwhile, provide low-end reinforcement, and compact ZX1i 8-inch, two-way loudspeakers provide front-fill from under the stage. Two two-box clusters per side of EVF-1122S/64 (60-by-40-degree front-loaded 12-inch two-way) are used for side-fills; Tour X TX1122FM wedges provide the on-stage monitor mix.
Both the main and distributed systems at the church are powered by just five CPS 4.10 multi-channel power amplifiers; a single Tour Grade TG-7 powers the Tour X subs. The entire system is controlled and supervised via a fully-loaded NetMax N8000 digital matrix system controller running IRIS-Net software.
Though this is a relatively sophisticated audio system, a TPI-12 12-inch touch panel at front-of-house provided the church with a simple control interface, making it easy to adjust the loudspeaker configuration with pre-programmed settings.
Friesen designed a GUI that clearly indicates the status of every component in the system, handles its zone levels and muting, and turns it on and off.
"The TPI-12 is so easy to use – one of the slickest things I've installed to date. For example: it's used to mute everything but the EVF side-fills when the church is hosting a banquet in the sanctuary, to create a more intimate sounding environment. Then, when the church puts on what amounts to a full-on rock concert, the system can be quickly reconfigured via the touch panel to its full-coverage, high-SPL performance mode – they can hit 105-110 dB during youth services. In addition to this simple control setup, acoustically the EVA has excellent continuity in terms of intelligibility from quiet spoken word to a loud band. Between the precise control and the performance, this system wouldn't be out of place in a high-end theatre."
"We also designed and installed an EVF system for West Valley Nazarene Church," Friesen added. "This was a challenging design, as it's a shallow room that requires almost 240-degree coverage around the stage – almost in the round. We needed to meet the church's budget requirements while meeting their need for full-coverage, full-bandwidth sound in a space with no room for subs. We addressed this thoroughly and cost-effectively with three 90-degree-vertical clusters of two EVF-1122S/94 (90-by-40-degree 12-inch two-way) full-range boxes and one EVF-1151S (single 15-inch) low-frequency box. It works beautifully. These clusters are run passively via the low-frequency crossover in the 15-inch box – we're using just one CPS 2.12 amp channel per cluster. Again, everything is controlled via a custom-configured IRIS-Net/NetMax system, but this time without the touch panel. They also have Tour X TX 1122FM floor wedges on stage. The EVF boxes provided a perfect solution. It's basically a large full-range system, but, listening to it, you wouldn't believe there aren't any subs in the space. The EV-I range has such a wide range of products, especially in terms of the various horn patterns; this provides us with a wider range of potential solutions for any given space, no compromises necessary."
For more information, please visit www.liftav.com and www.electrovoice.com.
