Light Presbyterian Church Installs TW AUDiO's VERA20i

With a seating capacity of 2,000, Light Presbyterian Church in the Canadian city of Mississauga is a Gospel-centred church that serves a multi-ethnic and multi-generational community.

The audio environment in the wide, fan-shaped chapel is far from perfect. The stage is not the most acoustically friendly environment, suffering from plenty of reflections, and a second-floor glass balcony railing adds further acoustic energy back into the sanctuary. This combination meant that the congregation was finding it hard to hear and fully understand services.

To solve these challenges, Light Presbyterian Church turned Abe Son from Benabe ProSound. Having worked with the church on various AV upgrades for a number of years, he knew the challenges the venue presented and had a unique solution to solve the problem – TW AUDiO’s VERA20i.

"We needed to design an L-R rather than L-C-R line array system for the wide, fan-shaped chapel," recalled Son. "The 'true' 120° VERA20i line array speakers were perfect for delivering even sound coverage across the whole chapel."

The installed solution sees L-R hangs of five VERA20i-120° cabinets and three VERA20i-80° enclosures. Four VERA S32i subs flown as a central cluster provide low frequency reinforcement, while a combination of C5, T20i, C5i, C12 and C15 cabinets serve as fills in various areas. Power and processing is courtesy of Powersoft amplifiers and DSP.

With the VERA20i line arrays solving the challenge of providing even coverage, Son turned to the reflection issues faced inside the sanctuary. The first space to tackle was the stage. “The superb cardioid mode of VERA S32i gave a perfect solution for the reflection issue on the stage,” he explains. “It reduced significant amount of low frequency reflections and created tight and solid low frequency making the sound natural and clear.”

To solve reflections from the balcony, Son needed to find a way to keep the energy off the glass surface. The beautifully simple solution for this saw the addition of dummy cabinets into the array thanks to close collaboration with TW AUDiO HQ in Germany.

"The TW AUDiO support and R&D team were so open minded by accepting and manufacturing VERA20i dummy cabinets to act as a 'balcony spacer'," enthuses Son. "In order to solve the reflection problems created by the second-floor glass balcony railing, we asked if TW AUDiO could make VERA 20i dummy cabinets. The team at TW AUDiO went the extra mile and did not just make them but calculated its physical weight and did all the simulations to adjust array angles affected by the lighter dummy cabinets."

The end result has seen all of the acoustic challenges at Light Presbyterian Church solved and the congregation and technical team enjoying a completely new environment for worship. "The church was so happy with the result that solved all the challenges," recalls Son. "One of the church sound engineers said he had never heard such a crystal crispy yet powerful sound."

The importance of the installation goes beyond what Benabe ProSound has helped the church to achieve, it is also marks a notable first for the German manufacturer. "This was the very first installation of the VERA20 series in the North American church market," concluded Son. "So this project will be a cornerstone of TW AUDiO in Canada."