Worshippers believe in QSC
Published: WORSHIP
US: Covenant Church in Texas has become the first House of Worship in the US to purchase QSC’s new KLA Series active line array system, for use across its five Dallas area campuses. The new system, intended for deployment at indoor and outdoor special events, is comprised of six KLA12 2-way, 12-inch loudspeakers and four KLA181 18-inch subwoofers. The 20,000-member church also added six K12 two-way, 12-inch active loudspeakers for use as outfill or stage monitors, depending on the type and size of the event. All the five campuses share the new system.
Covenant Church bought the KLA System, introduced by QSC earlier this year, based upon its audio departments’ exemplary experience with QSC products. ‘We literally bought the KLAs without auditioning them,’ said Slade Goplin, chief technical engineer and project coordinator for Covenant Church’s audio department. ‘We have some of QSC’s HPR Series and quite a few of the K12s, and we’ve always been extremely happy with the products. So we already believed that the KLAs would be great.’
Covenant’s audio team got to use – and hear – the new KLA Series System for the first time at the church’s annual Block Party outdoor event in late July. ‘They set up a big stage and we hung three KLA12 boxes per side off of the truss and had the four KLA181 subs on the ground,’ Mr Goplin explained. ‘When we plugged them in, we were really impressed at how powerful they were – and how great they sounded.’
Mr Goplin and the audio team also took advantage of the benefits of the KLA’s Solo (Single Operator Logistics) rigging system, said to allow the system to be deployed in a fraction of the time required by comparable line array systems. ‘I put the arrays together by myself,’ Mr Goplin said. ‘I hung one box by some straps to the truss, and then I just grabbed a second box, held it up with one hand and put the two latches down. That was it.’
Like all the K family models, the KLA Series features 1,000W Class-D amplifier modules, allowing up to five K family products to be used on a single 15A/120V circuit. At the Block Party, the Covenant audio team took the chance to test this efficiency first-hand. ‘We ran all the speakers off four 20A circuits,’ said Mr Goplin. ‘I thought we’d need more but we just plugged it in and see if we blew any breakers – but we didn’t!’ The Covenant team also was impressed with the KLA’s ability to withstand a harsh outdoor environment. ‘We started setting up at 10am and were all set up by noon, with all the speakers sitting out in the sun on a 110-degree day. I said to myself: since the KLAs can take this, then we’re good to go.’