Suburban Chicago Church Welcomes QSC Audio to its Family
Nov 3, 2005 8:00 AM
The faithful, small but growing congregation of the Family Life Church in Chicago recently had its faith rewarded. After many long Sunday meetings in a makeshift sanctuary in the Elgin O’Hare Commerce Building, the church received a truly remarkable donation — a new home.
The gift of a classic church building, not far from the existing facility, was a welcome one indeed, and the Family Life staff immediately set about making it their own, beginning with a new sound system based around ModularDesign (MD) series loudspeakers from Costa Mesa, Calif.-based QSC Audio Products.
The former owners of the building had removed the existing sound system, leaving the rigging points and sound booth. This gave the church elders an opportunity to create a whole new system. “The only things they brought from the old facility’s system were their CD and cassette players,” reports Phil Earnest, national sales manager for JESA Nationwide Services, the company that provided the system. “Everything else, down to the cabling, is brand new.”
The main rig is comprised of four flying MD-F152/64r 15in. two-way cabinets, augmented by an MD-S218 18in. subwoofer. Two QSC ISA1350 amplifiers and two ISA750 amplifiers power the rig. Local systems designer Chris King created and installed the system within a tight deadline, working at the top of the 30ft. peaked ceilings in the sweltering Midwestern summer heat, with no air conditioning.
“Chris really burned the midnight oil to get the system happening,” Earnest remarks. “He was in there Saturday night finishing up so they could hold their first service the next morning.”
The room’s wide rectangular design and upper balcony presented some acoustical challenges, Earnest recalls. “Instead of a center cluster, we broke it out to a left and right array and removed a few of the front pews to move the congregation back a bit. The MD loudspeakers really helped to keep most of the splashing off the walls, and they sound terrific.”
For more information, visit www.qscaudio.com.
