Parkview Christian Church gains clarity & fidelity with Electro‑Voice EVF loudspeaker system

• A vertical cluster of three Electro-Voice EVF loudspeakers provides excellent coverage and full-range fidelity for this 400-person-capacity sanctuary in Wooster, Ohio.
• First vertical array of EVF loudspeakers ever installed by regional design/build firm Ingold Sound Systems.
• Pairing of EVF loudspeakers with different dispersion patterns provides ideal coverage for both near-field and distant seating areas.

Parkview Christian Church of Wooster, Ohio, is a modestly sized contemporary house of worship that was suffering from poor sound quality both onstage and in the sanctuary. The existing portable system was ill suited to the task, offering limited fidelity and intelligibility. In hopes of improving both without breaking the budget, Pastor Brian White reached out to Ingold Sound Systems of Shelby, Ohio, a regional audio-video-lighting company specializing in the worship market, in hopes of a solution.

“Speaking with the pastor, they were having issues both on stage and in the sanctuary,” says Ernie Ingold, founder of Ingold Sound Systems. “When I saw and heard the room, I knew it would be perfect for a small vertical system. We’ve been very successful with EVF loudspeakers from Electro-Voice, but have always used them in horizontal arrays. The layout of the room at Parkview was a textbook situation for a small vertical array.”

The sanctuary is rectangular in shape, with a capacity of about 400 people. With a gently curved 21-foot (6.4 m) ceiling, padded pews, a carpeted floor, and very few windows, the natural reverb from reflections was not excessive. The room features a cross-aisle about one-third of the way back, providing a natural break in the coverage pattern. With the range of available dispersions in the Electro-Voice EVF series—front-loaded models from the extensive EV-Innovation family of installation-dedicated loudspeaker systems—he was able to design a system to provide complete coverage using only three boxes and a single hang point.

The system’s single cluster includes two mains: one Electro-Voice EVF-1122D/96 (90H x 60V dispersion) for the front of the room and another, the Electro-Voice EVF-1122D/64 (60 x 40), to cover the back two-thirds of the room. They hang beneath an Electro-Voice EVF-2121S subwoofer. The system is powered by two Electro-Voice CPS 2.9 amplifiers, all controlled by an Electro-Voice Dx46, an FIR drive-equipped loudspeaker system processor.

“We used the Dx46 to split the signal into dual delays, and used SMAART Live software to set our equalization,” says Ingold. “The Dx46 does a great job, so we have a very cohesive sound with even coverage and great intelligibility through the entire room.”

With the main sanctuary under control, Ingold turned his attention to the stage. The new monitors are all Electro-Voice, with a pair of Tour-X TX1152FM wedges covering the primary musicians, and a TX1122FM floor wedge for the drummer. A compact, full-range ZX1 loudspeaker covers the pianist. “This is a modestly sized praise band, with just four mixes on stage, but their old system was still not effective,” says Ingold. “They could not believe the improvement they got from having new EV wedges, with better sound quality to allow lower stage volume.”

Reactions from Parkview Christian Church team members have been uniformly positive: “The clarity is amazing,” enthuses Pastor Brian White. Sound technician Steve Hanna is equally impressed. “The system sounds great! We couldn’t be more pleased,” he reports. “Ingold Sound Systems came, they listened, and they delivered our needs. They are a team of experts.”