SAN BERNARDINO, CA — The first Southern California K-array KH2/KS5 system was installed in “The Rock Church & Outreach Center,” where the sanctuary accommodates 2,700 worshipers for each of the five Sunday services held every weekend, along with multiple events during the week.
The main flown system (designed by K-array’s newest west coast dealer, Rick Camp of RC1 Productions), consists of four K-array KH2 beam-steerable, flat-panel mid-high boxes and one KS5 dual-21″ subwoofer per side. The front fill system includes six K-array Anakonda KAN 200+ flexible array speakers mounted on the front lip of the stage, coupled with two KMT21P single-21 subs mounted under the stage.
The previous install was a massive, 20 year old, 12-box trapezoidal system that was esthetically undesirable in the newly renovated sanctuary. Darwin Tillery, the church’s head engineer, tasked RC1 Productions to provide the least visually seen, but with best overall venue coverage speaker system. Camp immediately went to work using EASE Focus software to construct a model of the venue based on the blueprint dimensions provided by Darwin.
The EASE Focus prediction returned the exact K-array speaker model, amount, rigging height, splay angles and beam steering coordinates for the system. Once the system was installed by RC1 Productions and tuned by Camp, the church’s pastors and sound crew were amazed at the coverage and frequency response by so few speaker elements, something K-array is known for.
Tillery says the facility runs nearly nonstop every day, with some sort of event being held in the main sanctuary, where the audio demands are very high. “Our venue is 280 feet wide by 140 feet deep, and we are now covering every inch of that space with no frequency loss with just four K-array KH2s and one flown KS5 front-loaded double-21 sub per side.”
Tillery made up his mind to recommend the K-array products recently after attending a K-array shootout that was spearheaded by RC1 Productions, where he witnessed the sonic quality, power (16,000 watts/box), coverage and accuracy of the K-array KH8/KS8 large-format touring speaker system.
The event was held in the 5,000-seat Star of the Desert arena at Buffalo Bills Casino In Primm, NV. The shootout was done A/B style with veteran FOH engineers Kyle Hamilton (Janet Jackson, Pharrell, Rihanna), Terry “TJ” Jackson (Earth,Wind & Fire) and Rick Camp (Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé, J-Lo, Chris Brown, Anita Baker) in attendance. Each engineer was given the console of their choice (DiGiCo SD7, Avid Profile or SSL L500) and as much time as they needed to dial up a mix from one of their groups’ multi-track shows. At that point, they could switch between speaker systems and walk the venue to check out the overall frequency response and coverage of both systems.
Both Hamilton and Jackson were totally amazed at the sonic superiority, power, coverage and throwing distance of the K-array system, all of which Camp was aware of since hearing an outdoor demo five years ago in San Diego’s 20,000 seat Sleep Train Amphitheater.
K-array is based in Florence,Italy and has been notably one of the top speaker manufacturers for the last 30 years with installs all over Europe, Asia and China.
With the new president Rusty Waite talking the helm this year for the U.S. distribution, the company feels poised to revolutionize the touring market with its line of flat panel speaker designs that cut the truck space needed down to a quarter of what conventional line array systems require at any given venue, while reducing rigging times down to one quarter of the time of other large-format systems.
For more information on the beam-steerable, flat-panel systems from K-array please contact Rick Camp/ RC1 Productions at (818) 472-9777
For more info, visit K-array.com
