EAW QX Series sees houses of worship success
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: EAW’s QX Series have recently been installed in various major houses of worship throughout the US.
At Westminster Chapel, Washington, Morgan Sound recently employed an LCR system with a single QX566i module on the left and right, and a QX596i in the centre. This three-box system provides coverage for 80 per cent of the chapel. Stephen Weeks of Morgan Sound used EAW MK8126i systems as balcony delays, JF60z systems as under balcony delays, UB52i systems for front-fills and an SB528zP cardioid subwoofer array to support the main QX systems.
‘The improvement is night and day,’ said Mr Weeks. ‘The new system provides clarity to every seat in the house. Everyone in the room can hear the pastor speak normally, at a reasonable volume level, but there’s also plenty of power available for higher-level music.’
‘I wanted to leave the church a legacy that would last the next 20 years,’ said Larry Dragland, former Westminster technical director who helped oversee the install. ‘Our pastor is soft spoken, so we needed clarity and headroom. Mission accomplished! Now I can place the vocals over the top of this mix and still hear the instruments without losing the intelligibility.’
Referring to the previous system, Morgan Sound owner Charlie Morgan commented:
‘The huge centre cluster is now gone, and the left, right, centre speaker hangs are less visible and much smaller. The EAW team’s design and the install and tuning by Morgan Sound were a home run.’
Meanwhile, at the Northwest Bible Church in Texas, consulting firm Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams (WJHW) designed another LCR system using the QX series. All three of Northwest Bible’s QX arrays individually provide over 90 per cent coverage to the main floor seating using QX564i. To complement the QX units, Jim Burdette, WJHW’s senior consultant, used EAW KF394 and KF364 compact, three-way systems for short-throw audio.
‘Those have a very similar mid-high profile to the QX500’s, so that worked very well,’ he said. ‘They rounded out the system with UB52i’s for the side and front-fills. The pattern offerings are very usable for designing cluster arrays that behave well together. When trying to cover a majority of the audience with each of the left-centre-right clusters, you need something that arrays well and has minimal phase, off-axis and destructive interference issues. The previous system sounded pretty poor from not having the pattern control or the coverage of the QX. This is a significant step up.
‘The parishioners and staff have said, “wow, we can't believe we're hearing all of the different vocals”. People of all generations feel the sound is much improved and much more pleasant, and those with more discriminating ears have commented on hearing all the different parts, instrumentation and tonality.’
EAW systems have also recently been installed in the JW ‘Jack’ MacGorman Chapel on the campus of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Texas, Village Seven Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, The Voice of Evangelism, Tennessee, and the Northside Christian Church in Texas.