Located in Vancouver, Washington is across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, the Crossroads Church is led by pastor Daniel Fusco, a dreadlocked, bass-player deep in spirit and short on convention. Since taking over from founding pastor Bill Ritchie, he has seen the congregation grow dramatically, and has recently installed a Danley Sound Labs sound reinforcement system in the church’s 2,200-seat auditorium.

A/V integration firm Focus Partners had worked with Crossroads for two years on the upgrade to its video, recording and broadcast infrastructure. ‘The next project that needed serious attention was the sound reinforcement system for the main auditorium, which was hard to listen to and fatiguing,’ recalls Dave Dartnall, owner/partner of Focus Partners. ‘These are very technically sophisticated folks; there are recording artists in the congregation, and the church hires high-end recording and live engineers. Pastor Fusco is a first-rate musician and has a very discriminating ear. FOH engineer Remington Smith has mixed bands and theatrical productions on every sized system in every type of venue – there’s really no gear he hasn’t heard. There’s even a world-class recording studio on campus.’

Around the same time that Dartnall and his team were beginning to think about a new system, a big-name line array roadshow set up in the Crossroads’ auditorium. The church was impressed by the line array and received a quote. After considering the cost of a premium concert-level line array system, and in light of the new lighting and LED wall display systems also planned for the auditorium, budgeting and total weight capacity was being discussed. Dartnall believed he had a better solution with Danley Sound Labs.

‘The line array was literally three times the cost of an abundantly powerful Danley system,’ he says. ‘They asked if it would be as good as the small chapel system, and I told them even better. They needed proof, so we arranged a demo with the help of Joel Moak, Danley’s Western Region Sales Manager.

‘Afterward, they said that the Danley system sounded so good that they would have gone with it even if it was more expensive than the line array,’ Dartnall reports. ‘The fact that it was a third of the cost was just a huge bonus.’

The Danley system comprises two SH-96HOs tight-packed and flown above the centre stage for a true centre channel that covers the entire room. An additional SH-96HO flanks the central cluster on either side to provide true left-right stereo imaging. Eighty per cent of the congregation gets stereo coverage. Three TH-118 subwoofers provide low-end support. Fed from Crossroads’ Dante network, three four-channel Danley DNA 20k4 Pro Dante amplifiers power the system, with onboard DSP used for loudspeaker conditioning. Interestingly, those seven Danley boxes replaced 40 boxes in the old system.

‘I’ve worked with just about everything,’ says FOH engineer Remington Smith. ‘I’ve never experienced anything that comes close to Danley – Danley is so accurate, there are no colorations or inconsistencies. The phase response is perfect because everything is time-aligned when it comes out of the box. I never have to fight the Danley boxes to get the sound I need. The intelligibility is crystal clear, which is critical because my overarching goal is to make sure the word of God is heard.’

Coverage is sufficienty even that there less than 1.5dB difference in level across the seating area.

Crossroads Church recently adopted a sister church across the river in Portland. With just three weeks’ warning, they asked Focus Partners to install a new sound reinforcement system for the satellite church on an incredibly tight budget. ‘Although they weren’t designed by Danley for this purpose, and we wouldn’t give it a full endorsement, the church technical staff heard Danley’s budget GO-2-CX loudspeakers at the WFX Show,’ Dartnall says. ‘Given the very limited money we had for the project, they felt the GO-2s would be the best compromise given the budget. Although not the same as Danley’s Synergy Horn boxes, the GO-2s sound noticeably better than conventional loudspeakers. We’re going to use four Danley GO-2-CXs, very much like at the main auditorium: two for centre channel and one on either side for stereo.’

More: www.danleysoundlabs.com