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Carnmoney Presbyterian Church
When Jim Hooks was asked to present a design and specification for a sound reinforcement and distributed audio system for a new build church project in Carnmoney, he knew that it would present quite a challenge. But what made this particular installation unique for him was the fact that the church, Carnmoney Presbyterian Church, situated just outside of Belfast, N Ireland, was his own congregation and House of worship. This meant that expectations and demands would be excessive.
After meeting with Mark Findlay of Architects, Kennedy Fitzgerald and David Black of Consultants Taylor Fagan, plus the Church committee and developers, Jim Hooks, MD and proprietor of DJ Kilpatrick & Co decided to employ the services of Darren Gardiner of L&SFX, Coleraine (KV2 Audio agent for Northern Ireland).
Darren explains: “Having built up a great working relationship with Jim over the last couple of year, we were pleased when he contacted us to ask our advice on the Carnmoney project he was working on From our first site visit we knew we wanted to use KV2 on the project”.
Jim Hooks continued “Both Darren and I have known and worked with Andy Austin-Brown from KV2 Audio Europe on previous successful projects. When we asked him to come on board we explained our requirements, a finite design and specification for the main house audio system, with a clearly defined intention regarding utilisation and operation”.
Due to the complexities in the design of the church and the programme material they wanted to run through the system, they were looking at two options, one was a flown cluster of speakers and the other was a left/right cluster. After consultation and advice from Andy they opted for simplicity, both in terms of operation and especially aesthetics, utilising a left/right configuration of two KV2 ES1.0 mid high enclosures and one KV2 ES2.5 subwoofer. four KV2 Audio EPAK2500 amplifier/system controllers were wall mounted, allowing easy and instant access.
Both Jim and Darren had slight reservations about coverage at the extreme edges of the church but Andy assured them “All would be well”.
The installation of the speakers and EPAKS was completed in a two-day period with Andy Austin Brown on hand to commission the system.
The new build church reflects an ever growing trend for an environment which has very clean, almost high-tech finishes, as well as some extraordinary shapes and dimensions, in this case the main hall shaped rather like an eye or a rugby ball, lower ground and upper balcony.
This all topped off with a beautifully executed tower, appearing to extend into the heavens.
There were only two fixed position points that could and would be accommodated by the interior designer and Architect as far as the loudspeaker enclosures were concerned, creating an enormous challenge with regards to correct coverage patterns and small details such as feedback rejection.
The system had to be capable of accommodating visiting praise groups, bands and public speakers from around the world.
The main criteria were that every single seat in the house of worship had to be in receipt of equal quality, volume and tonality.
KV2 Audio LLC in Czech responded with a special order for cabinets in a specific colour and all delivered within one month of order.
Darren again “We played a wide range of music through the system ranging from Norah Jones to Nigel Kennedy to Bon Jovi, all our team and Jim were more than impressed, in fact they were actually astonished at the output, clarity and coverage we were able to achieve from a system with such a small footprint. Jim turned to me and said ‘thank god for that’ and left with a big grin on his face. Andy was spot on with his spec and to coin a phrase "it does what it says on the box" I have no hesitations in specifying KV2 product on our forthcoming projects, if they all turn out like Carnmoney my life will be a lot easier.
The church opened its doors for an inaugural service on Sat 24th April.
Jim Hooks summarised the whole project stating: “We could all be proud of what had been achieved.” Having personally walked and seated himself along with senior members of the committee in every seat, pronounced that everything requested had been achieved and surpassed.
As Jim puts it: “Quite simply, Carnmoney Presbyterian Church was a beautiful building and now had a beautiful audio system”
28th July 2004
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