St Swithuns of Bournemouth is home to the Bournemouth Family Church, part of the New Frontiers ministry, and host to a vibrant congregation which is growing so fast that it is looking for a second venue. The Church called upon Creative Solutions, and on the advice of John Ellis and David Howe of Shuttlesound (EV's UK distributor), chose to design a sound system that would handle all their speech reinforcement needs as well as provide amplification for the singers and bands that perform as part of the services.
The solution came in the shape of a single line array comprising six Electro-Voice XLE181 cabinets, flown alongside two Xs212 subs. The XLE boxes are compact, and the array is surprisingly unobtrusive, flown against the dark timbered arch of the ceiling, and silhouetted against a large stained-glass window.
The 181s are used in conjunction with EV's NetMax N8000 audio processor, which provides control of all loudspeaker management functions. The system is powered by EV CP Series amplifiers; CP3000S and 2200 for the mids and tops, and CP4000S for the subs.
Shuttlesound's David Howe explains: "It's a long throw from the front of the church to the seats at the very back, and the environment is highly reverberant. It needed to be quite a powerful system, but using the line array provides much better control than a point source system."
(Jim Evans)
