“This system can handle anything,” says Skylark AV Senior Design Engineer Tyler Mergy of the L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker rig newly-installed at Victory Church. “Any genre of music, any conference they need to put on, it’ll do it. It’s rider-ready for anything.”
The nondenominational evangelical church in Tulsa, Oklahoma went into the audio upgrade seeking a single solution for various types of content. The large house of worship produces elaborate theatrical shows at holidays like Christmas and Easter with the rest of the year seeing a mix of dynamic, song-based worship services. Fortunately, locally based Skylark AV had a solution: an L-Acoustics K2 system with the right mix of elements for the main campus’s 5,000-seat sanctuary, which first opened 20 years ago.
Keith Carroll, Production Director and front-of-house engineer for Victory Church, makes his impression of the new K2 system as clear as the sound itself. “It’s the most incredible transformation of the church’s sound quality that I’ve heard in the ten-plus years I’ve been here,” he says. “The sound reaches every part of the room, every seat, and it reaches it consistently, in terms of sound quality and level. Even in parts of the room where some acoustical treatment was needed, the clarity and intelligibility of the sound is incredible.”
Tall and long, Victory’s worship space is perfectly served by Skylark’s design: a dozen K2 per side, backed by four flown K1-SB low-end extension enclosures, with 14 Kara II per side as side-fills. Low end is bolstered by eight KS28 ground-stacked subs, powered by LA12X amplified controllers. The K2 are driven by six LA7.16i running in single-box resolution, which significantly reduced the number of amplifiers needed, while the Kara II are powered by LA4X.
Mergy, who worked on the project with fellow Design Engineer Zach Kimrey, says the LA7.16i amplified controllers are “game-changers—they reduced the number of amps we needed without reducing the amount of power we got, because they can be run in single-box mode. Six of these in single-mode resolution literally replace a dozen LA12X, providing the church with a very cost-effective solution. And the K2 truly fill the room; we’re really just using the HF drivers on the Kara II to reach the edges of the sanctuary. K2 supplies all the SPL the room needs.”
Carroll says he and the church’s music staff are looking forward to hearing the large-scale, Broadway-style productions that Victory has come to be known for, such as its upcoming Easter pageant. “The musicians, in particular, are excited about that,” he says. “They’re running their IEMs flat, without EQ, and that’s resulting in virtually no distortion at all, at any volume level. Everyone onstage is much better able to engage with the songs now because of the sound. Having L-Acoustics really has been an incredible transformation for us.”
For more details on Victory Church, visit www.victory.com. Skylark AV can be found online at www.skylarkav.com.