Some ladies heard it immediately. They came up after the eight o'clock service and asked, 'Now, what did you do to the sound? I can understand every word the preacher is saying now, and I couldn't understand hardly anything before.'”
Marc OwensAudio Coordinator, Hillvue Heights Church
When Hillvue Heights Church of Bowling Green, Ky. installed a new Meyer Sound reinforcement system based on JM‑1P arrayble loudspeakers, the sermon and music no longer sounded the same.
“Some ladies heard it immediately,” recalls Marc Owens, audio coordinator for the church. “They came up after the eight o’clock service and asked, ‘Now, what did you do to the sound? I can understand every word the preacher is saying now, and I couldn’t understand hardly anything before.'”
At the later up-tempo services for younger congregants, intelligibility couples with sheer power as the new system kicks into high gear. “I can peel the paint if I want to,” admits Owens, whose career in audio includes mixing for touring country notables and operation of Bowling Green’s premier recording studio. “We’re hitting up to 115 dB in here now, but nobody complains because it doesn’t hurt—as often it would with the old boxes.”
Bruce Bossert of Nashville-based Mid-Coast & Performance Audio, Inc., supplier of the Meyer Sound system, is also pleased by the power handling of the JM-1P. “It’s a rock ‘n’ roll system in a rock ‘n’ roll church,” says Bossert. “It hits hard and it still has tons of headroom left.” Bossert facilitated the installation, with Duane Tabinski providing on-site project management.
At the system’s core are left and right arrays of four each JM-1P loudspeakers, which cover most of the main floor seats in the roughly 1,500-capacity multipurpose auditorium. Solid bass kicks out from four under-stage 600-HP subwoofers, a down-firing UPA-2P loudspeaker fills in the center, two UPQ-2P loudspeakers handle out fill, and the wide balcony is covered by two UPA-2P and four UPA-1P delay loudspeakers. A number of MM‑4XP miniature self-powered loudspeakers are installed, including six for under-balcony fill and eight for front fill, and two HD-1 monitors sits at FOH mix. A Galileo loudspeaker management system with two Galileo 616 processors provides system drive and processing.
“This was my first install with the JM-1P, and I was extremely impressed with its tone quality and power,” remarks Tabinski. “It has outstanding vocal clarity, and it was definitely the right box for the job. When the system was complete and tuned, the sound in the room was seamless. But then nothing I’ve done with Meyer has ever left me wanting. I’m a big fan!”
Marc Owens credits the church’s worship pastor, Keith Scarborough, as the one with the original vision to aim for a Meyer Sound solution. From there, system design and loudspeaker selection was a collaborative effort on the part of Owens, Bossert, and Tabinski in consultation with Meyer Sound Design Services. Final tuning was accomplished using the SIM 3 audio analyzer.
The new system takes on a full plate of duties. In addition to the Sunday and Wednesday church services, the auditorium hosts community meetings, graduations, children’s shows, and concerts—TobyMac was one of the first to perform using the new system.