The Suba district of Colombia’s capital city of Bogotá is celebrated for its inclusiveness, home to all social classes and Colombia’s indigenous peoples. It is also where Iglesia El Lugar de Su Presencia wanted to ensure clear audio for everyone filling the nearly 4,000 seats of its newest church location. Thus, the church conducted an onsite comparative evaluation of four brands of loudspeaker systems. It also heard the clarity of the L-Acoustics K2 arrays in use at Christ Fellowship Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Following this, El Lugar de Su Presencia chose L-Acoustics for its Suba campus.
Installing the System
Bogotá-based AVCOM, an L-Acoustics Certified Provider for Install (CPi), integrated a full complement of L-Acoustics K, A, and X Series loudspeaker systems at the new church. The church is constructed on the site of a former mall that had been leveled to make way for the worship space. Like many other projects, the pandemic delayed work on the entire facility. Thus, the L-Acoustics system components were delivered onsite on the Suba campus in June 2020; however, the assembly didn’t commence until a year later.
In the meantime, AVCOM worked closely with L-Acoustics’ house of worship applications project manager, Josh Maichele and Alex Soto, L-Acoustics’ applications engineer for Latin America and The Caribbean. Together, they used the manufacturer’s Soundvision software to design, implement, and calibrate a system to fulfill the church’s many expectations.
El Lugar de Su Presencia was established in 1993 in the home of Founding Pastor Andrés Corson and his wife, Rocío. Since then, it has exploded its reach to more than 42,000 congregants across multiple sites. The church wanted to minimize the distance between the stage and seats in its new Suba sanctuary to best preserve intimacy and connection. Thus, it opted for a fan-shaped house design. However, this layout potentially complicated audio coverage.
“We decided on a combination of K, A, and X Series speakers that would give us a completely customized solution to cover the entire seating area evenly and uniformly,” says Marco Pineda, AVCOM live application specialist. “The church’s audio tech director wanted no more than 3dB SPL variation to any seat, front to back and side to side, as well as even distribution of the low frequency energy.” Emphasizing the selection of L-Acoustics for the Suba campus, Pineda adds that it answered every question in the system design.
Features of L-Acoustics System at Suba Campus
The church’s new loudspeaker system now features four arrays of six K2 plus three Kara down-fill enclosures, with three KS28 subs flown behind each hang and eight more KS28 arrayed on the ground. Ten short-throw coaxial X8 also serve as front-fills along the lip of the stage. Six A10 and two X8 are flown as under-balcony fills. Meanwhile, three A15i delay out-fills complement the far back corners.
Additionally, a total of 28 amplified controllers power the entire system. Specifically, it has 21 LA12X for the mains, out-fills, and subs, and seven LA4X for everything else. The installation team also integrated three L-Acoustics P1 processors, paired with the M1 measurement tool suite and controlled via LA Network Manager, as well as three Avnu-certified LS10 AVB switches into the system. All audio runs on Milan-AVB for the main signal, with AES/EBU and analog available as fallback signals.
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“The room was built very well, with great attention paid to its acoustics,” Pineda says. “The real challenge was the layout of the seating. For the pastor, it is all about making sure everything can be heard clearly by everyone. He wanted a lot of presence and clarity, and that’s what this system delivers.”
Pineda then continues to expand on the installation. He remarks, “The main hangs of K2 offer tremendous presence and power without overpowering [anything], and the A Series and X8 are the perfect fill speakers for this room. There is actually no more than a 2dB variation in SPL throughout the seats, so no matter where you sit, you hear everything, and you hear it clearly.”
Final Outcome
Juan Pablo, church audio tech director, says the new and larger location required a bigger and better PA system. “This campus has an important area to cover, and we wanted a PA system that could bring the worship experience to a new level,” he explains. “We also wanted a PA system where the voice could be heard warm and soft, but at the same time could be able to cover every seat, without losing the deep round low-frequency sound that we like.”
Pablo notes that the pastor chose L-Acoustics after hearing the other various systems. Pineda then adds that the system has impressed nearly everyone. “The pastor is very pleased with the system and he’s been receiving many good comments about the sound,” he says. Pineda continues, “[Everyone in church] are also very happy about the precision and punch, right down to the lowest frequencies from the KS28 subs.”
Pineda also points out that L-Acoustics remedied another challenge the church faced at the Suba campus. This extended to the difficulty in getting spare parts for its previous sound systems. “L-Acoustics support is fantastic,” he says. “Parts, advice, help, is just phone call or email away. “We wanted a better sound system for the church. What we got was a better partner for sound.”
Click on “View Slideshow” for images of L-Acoustics loudspeaker system for the church.
