Central Wesleyan Church Upgrades to L-ACOUSTICS

When Holland, Michigan's Central Wesleyan Church celebrated its 115th anniversary and paid off the mortgage on its current worship center, the church's leadership team immediately knew what their first project should be: acoustic treatments and a new sound system for their 2,800-seat, fan-shaped main sanctuary. After a careful search for the right systems consultant, the church hired Dallas-based Acoustic Dimensions, which created an equipment specification for the space built on L-ACOUSTICS' KUDO platform.

According to Central Wesleyan facilities manager Dwayne Dreyer, the church knew what system it liked almost from the very start. "Our technical director, Paul VanDyke, audio engineers Justin Dreyer and Michael Nieboer, and I went down to Dallas to visit with Ryan Knox and Steve Reed at Acoustic Dimensions, and they took us to half a dozen sites that they had engineered," he says. "When we walked into Watermark Church, which has a Kudo system, we simply fell in love with what we heard. When we got back home, we visited Resurrection Life Church here in our own area to listen to their Kudo system, and it sounded just as amazing. By that point, we were totally sold on the product."

Using L-Acoustics' SOUNDVISION 3-D system modeling software, Acoustic Dimensions mapped out a design featuring left and right arrays of nine Kudo each. Low frequency reinforcement is achieved via six SB28 subwoofer enclosures flown between the Kudo arrays in a unique V-shaped cardioid configuration, plus six more SB28 spread out just under the front lip of the wide stage below. Five coaxial 8XT speakers, painted white, are ceiling-mounted under the balcony to cover the acoustically shadowed areas at the back of the main floor seating, and the entire system is powered and processed by 13 LA8 amplified controllers.

"Central Wesleyan's services feature a broad range of musical styles that encompass everything from choral to rock, all of which Kudo handles very well," says Gary Zandstra at Parkway Electric, the contracting firm that was awarded the bid for installation. "The system has outstanding clarity for spoken word and orchestration, as well as plenty of punch for both contemporary worship and the touring acts that they're currently bringing in, like Michael W. Smith and Kenny Rogers. Now, with this installation, we've installed L-Acoustics systems into the three largest churches in the greater Grand Rapids area, and each of them is extremely happy with the results."