Summit Integrated Systems Installs JBL and Crown at Flatirons Community Church

flatirons-church-1.jpgLAFAYETTE, Colorado — A new mega-church in Lafayette, Colorado has revitalized the downtown area and the Christian community. Located in a remodeled former Walmart and large grocery store, Flatirons Community Church is a 4,100-person capacity house of worship, occupying 160,000 square feet of space. The main sanctuary has as much in common with a theater as a church, including a sound system of epic proportions featuring more than 30 HARMAN's JBL VERTEC® line array and PD Series loudspeakers, powered by more than 50 Crown® Audio I-Tech Series amplifiers.

The sound system design and installation was contracted to Summit Integrated Systems of Lafayette, Colorado, a full-service audio, video and lighting company with expertise across all large project disciplines. Summit provides a variety of services locally and nationally, from turnkey installations to large specialty subcontracting.

“Our challenge was to provide clear, large-scale sound with full coverage in a room that measures 50,000 square feet, yet still maintain an intimate feel,” noted Tyson Wiens, Vice President of Operations for Summit. “The bands at some of the services absolutely rock the house, and we needed to deliver levels of 98 to 100 db at the mix position.”

Summit went with a system that includes 10 JBL VERTEC VT4889 fullsize line array elements per side, complemented by four VERTEC VT4880 fullsize arrayable subwoofers. Two JBL PD743 loudspeakers are used for side fills and seven PD743 speakers are employed for down fills, along with two PD764 loudspeakers used as delays.

“We knew we wanted line arrays for the new church,” stated Wiens. “In the old facility, we were blowing smaller speakers all the time. We demo'd several brands of loudspeakers and worked hand in hand with the church in the process, which was easy as they're right down the street from us and we've done projects with them before. The new sanctuary is a totally renovated space, which was advantageous as we could integrate the audio/video and lighting design with the rest of the new construction.”

“We chose the VERTEC VT4889 for a number of reasons. The punch of the dual 15-inch speakers and the four 2250H 8-inch midrange drivers was unlike anything else we'd heard. The VT4889 has plenty of headroom—it's a real rock and roll box—and can ‘breathe' without compressing the mids and vocals. Also, they fit within our budget.”

“The room is basically a big square box with the stage located in a corner, and the seating fanning out from the base of it,” continued Wiens. “Providing adequate coverage was definitely a challenge—and we found that we needed additional speakers to augment the VERTEC arrays in order to completely fill the room. We consulted with JBL engineers and came upon the solution of using the PD743 speakers to extend the left and right coverage beyond the VERTEC arrays, and maintain the stereo image. It's a novel application that works perfectly.”

“Another important consideration is that we chose Crown I-Tech amplifiers because they're specifically designed to integrate with the VERTEC speakers and the BSS® Audio Soundwebâ„¢ London BLU-800 signal processor we used,” said Wiens. “Although there are other good amplifiers out there, the fact that the VERTEC speakers and Crown amps are designed to work in synergy made setting up and tuning the system a lot easier and faster.” The system employs 10 I-T12000HD, 23 I-T9000HD and 19 I-T5000HD power amps.

“The Flatirons Community Church is one of our most successful installations,” concluded Wiens. “You can't come out of there without feeling moved and inspired.”

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets — supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 12,500 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.0 billion for twelve months ending September 30, 2011.