Having outgrown its long-time location in Tustin, California, Calvary Chapel Tustin (CCT) moved to nearby Santa Ana in 2015 leasing the main sanctuary from the First Church of the Nazarene. The two churches coexist on the property with CCT occupying the 700-seat main sanctuary and First Nazarene holding services in the recently remodelled chapel.

On the strength of its work at Wildwood Calvary Chapel in Yucaipa, California, CCT contracted design-build firm BESA-Bowls Engineering Sound & Acoustics in early 2018 for its own audio upgrades. In response, BESA founder and senior sound designer, Darren Bowls, devised a sound design that addressed the sanctuary’s extremely high ceilings, split-block wall surfaces, and voluminous nature.

Bowls felt CCT would benefit from a similar equipment combination he first implemented at Wildwood – Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers powered by amplifiers from UK-based company, Linea Research.

Having spent two decades in studio recording and mixing Bowls, has a predeliction for high-quality sound: ‘We typically don’t use mid-grade equipment as part of our designs,’ he admits. ‘By the time we get the call from a client, they are generally pretty frustrated with the level of performance of their existing sound system and are looking for final solutions. We only deal with the best equipment available from a handful of manufacturers.’

While Bowls regards Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers to deliver impeccable fidelity, he felt the amplifiers he was using were falling short. And, having recently discovered Linea Research amplifiers on a chance encounter with Rik Kirby of Linea’s US distributor, Allied ProTech, he sought an alternative: ‘Soon after I was in the studio mixing a project and my amp went down,’ Bowls recalls. ‘I decided to call Rik and he furnished me with an amplifier to demo.’

‘I was putting the final touches on a mix at that time and when I brought the faders up I was like, “What the heck?” I could hear that I was over compressing the lead vocal, and my panning wasn’t accurate, among other flaws. I was now hearing the subtle nuances of the mix and picking up on problems I hadn’t noticed before.’

This led Bowls to pair a Linea Research amplifier with Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers at Wildwood Calvary Chapel in early 2018 – the first Fulcrum/Linea Research pairing in the world. When CCT approached BESA about needed upgrades, Bowls consequently specified the same pairing.

‘Pattern control and ultimate fidelity were the main goals in order to gain articulation and detail in a highly reverberant room,’ Bowls says. ‘The church sanctuary at CCT was acoustically designed in the early 1970s for choir, piano, and organ. It’s full of odd reflective angles and has a high peaked ceiling and stretches 100ft from the stage to balcony back wall. Acoustically the room is the same today as it was when it was built.’ Bowls dealt with the acoustical challenges by installing a pair of Fulcrum AH65 full-range coaxial horn loudspeakers, which have a relatively tight 60° horizontal beamwidth, for the main system, plus four DX896 dual 8-inch coaxial loudspeakers deployed as front fills along the stage lip, both to fill in the first few rows, and to lower the sound source back down to the stage. Three floor-stacked Sub218L dual 18-inch subwoofers delivers the extended low-end frequencies.

A system of this size requires substantial power, which is a strength of Linea Research amplifiers. Bowls powered the bi-amplified AH65s with four channels of a Linea 48M10 and put the amp’s other four channels to work driving the DX896s. The 48M10 packs eight channels of class-D amplification into a 2U-high rack space, as well as carrying onboard DSP that fully supports Fulcrum’s TQ FIR processing algorithms. It can deliver 1.25kW of RMS power per channel into a 2Ω, 4Ω or 8Ω ohm load, or even drive that same power into a 70V or 100V system.

The subwoofers are powered with a Linea 44C20 amplifier housing four channels in a 2U-high package, each channel delivering up to 5kW (at 2Ω) of class-D amplification at extremely low distortion. The 44C20 also offers extensive 96kHz signal processing, as well as Ethernet networking, and a variety of input options (analogue, AES3 and optional Dante).

Distributor Allied ProTech provided BESA with extensive support in optimising the system set-up. ‘It’s like there’s nothing between the music source and the speaker _ it’s truly transparent,’ Bowls says. ‘BESA has always focused on how a room makes a person feel while listening to music, and if done correctly, the immediacy of the music and spoken word will engage the listener from any point in the room. We certainly achieved that at CCT.’

Bowls will continue pairing products from the two companies: ‘The combination of the Linea Research amplifiers with Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers is uniquely special,’ he says. ‘Fulcrum and Linea are a perfect match.’