TWIN FALLS, ID — First Baptist Church, which seats 300 in a space that’s only 39 feet wide, needed an upgraded sound system that wouldn’t break the budget. Tom Hautka, owner of the installation company Sounddoc, found an affordable cure using ISP Technologies HDM112 speakers as key top boxes.
The church, which couldn’t afford to replace everything it owned, had been using an Allen & Heath GL 3200 32-channel board and an LCR speaker system with Mackie (RCF) 300A for left and right and two Community cabs for the cluster. The ISP HDM112s replaced the RCF speakers, and the difference in sound, Hautka said, was amazing.
“The thing that I notice about these speakers is their ability to project sound and their clarity. In a narrow room like this, it’s important to have a system that can project to the back of the room without being incredibly loud at the front,” Hautka said. “With these speakers we maintained the same level from the first pew to the face of the balcony. What is really amazing is that these speakers are one of the speaker choices in ISP’s monitor speaker line.”
The old sound system used a delay and a small set of Electro-Voice speakers for the under-balcony fills to cover the back of the room. With the HDM112s, Hautka found that he didn’t need the under balcony fills. With this new configuration, 3dB was lost under the balcony, but the clarity of the system more than made up for the small deficit. Because the church had previously had Electro-Voice active subs installed, those were left in as an added punch to the new top boxes. Existing speaker mounts also kept the upgrade within the church’s budget.
Sounddoc originally installed eight channels of Ashly Protea EQs, and they came in very handy for tuning the system. The room really liked 100Hz, so Sounddoc took it out completely on all three channels — L-C-R. The rest of the frequencies required very little adjustment.
“This is by far the easiest system to tune,” Hautka said. “Mike Redman, the worship leader, said that it even changed the sound on the platform. He could hear things he has never heard before. He said his guitar actually sounds like he is playing through his amplifier,” Hautka added, noting that he runs direct from his pedal.
“Wow! That was my first reaction when we turned the ISP speakers on,” Redman said. “I had kept my expectations low, because our old speakers were quite good. Unless you put speakers side by side you often don’t hear the difference. However, in this case, there was such a remarkable difference, I was shocked. Even from the stage we could hear things we have never heard before. I felt foolish when I found myself looking for a leak when I heard our rain stick playing through the right speaker.”
Redman added that the overwhelming word the congregation used to describe this new system was “clear.” He said the only drawback was now that everyone had to perform better because you could hear everything now. “I seriously doubt if there is another sound system to match ours within 100 miles,” Redman concluded. “We have been blessed from the first day we met Tom Hautka and we are doubly blessed that he made it possible for us to own these outstanding speakers.”
For more information, please visit www.isptechnologies.com and www.soundoc.net.
