WorxAudio Technologies Deployed at North Kannapolis Baptist Church in North Carolina

	Charles Morrow, music director at North Kannapolis Baptist Church and Cam Taylor, technical director.

As is the case with many houses of worship, music plays an increasingly vital role during services at North Kannapolis Baptist Church these days because of its ability to engage the audience and, as a result, make services more relevant to a wider constituency. After having struggled with the inadequacies of its previous sound reinforcement system, church leaders decided an upgrade was in order. After reviewing a variety of SR systems, the decision was made to install loudspeakers from the TrueLine and Wave Series catalogs of Greensboro, North Carolina-based WorxAudio Technologies.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Strategic Connections, a licensed low voltage and unlimited electrical contractor that provides design engineering and installation services of audiovisual presentation systems for churches, theaters, auditoriums, stadiums, training rooms, and executive conference rooms, was contracted to design and deploy North Kannapolis Baptist Church's new sound system. Kelly Gragg, one of the firm's AVSL sales engineers, discussed the project and its challenges.

"North Kannapolis Baptist Church has a 'blended' type of service," Gragg explained. "They have a worship team that consists of keyboards, piano, organ, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and drums along with a vocal team and choir. Services include a mixture of traditional, contemporary, plus praise and worship styles of music led by their worship leader and minister of music, Charles Morrow. The church had existing PA speakers on the left and right above the exit doors in the organ speaker coves. These loudspeakers were homemade and did not adequately provide sound reinforcement for their type of services. There were no subwoofers for low frequency support and the monitor system was inadequate to provide full monitoring capabilities for the vocalists."

Armed with an understanding of the challenges that confronted the church and its congregation, Gragg proceeded to recommend, demonstrate and, ultimately, deploy WorxAudio's TrueLine X5i-P all-in-one compact line array system -- augmented by WorxAudio's Wave Series 18Si-P bass reflex subwoofer and a 12M high efficiency monitor loudspeaker. The fact that the X5i-P is a two-way, high efficiency, powered line array loudspeaker that integrates five modules into a single, compact enclosure incorporating five high frequency drivers and ten 8" cone transducers makes this an ideal choice for this space, which measures 69' by 54' (length / width) with a ceiling height of 30'.

"I knew that North Kannapolis would benefit from the X5's sound quality," Gragg reports. "The dispersion of this loudspeaker system is 160-degrees horizontal by 40-degrees vertical, which was more than adequate for this room -- especially since there was a balcony and the front of house mix position is located there. The X5i-P was placed in the center of the room directly above the pulpit/stage area while the 18Si-P subwoofer was located in one of the organ speaker coves to conserve space. The 12M monitor resides on stage to support the vocals."

Gragg was also impressed with the ease of installation and the effectiveness of the WorxAudio equipment, "While walking through the room, practically every seat in the house has the same flat response. There was not a lot of tuning necessary to get this line array system set up. Out of the box, we were nearly perfect. WorxAudio's intuitive rigging hardware also made for a nice, clean installation. Sound is to be heard, not seen and, in this respect, the X5 delivered. It would be hard to imagine an easier set up. The 18Si subwoofer provides the added warmth and punch needed for the low end. Combined with the X5, this is a terrific system. The 12M monitor provides the stage with a full, rich sound that does not need to be as loud as was previously necessary. The vocalists can hear things much better with this monitor, while the sound operator, Cam Taylor, is able to lower the stage mix -- preventing bleed into the sanctuary."

North Kannapolis Baptist Church's new sound reinforcement system was installed in early December 2012 and was immediately placed into service for the important holiday season. Reflecting on the project, Gragg offered these final comments. "The church is extremely happy with their new sound system. Cam Taylor has nothing but praise for the new system. The music from the worship team is cleaner than ever and they also agree that their sound is better now with the new loudspeakers. The senior pastor, Rev. Chris O'Guin, is also pleased with the system's performance -- particularly since he is now able to move about freely, without the fear of feedback. We are very pleased with WorxAudio Technologies and plan to use them at every opportunity possible. This was a project where everyone came out a winner!"