Apex Baptist Church in North Carolina recently completed a ‘night and day’ audio upgrade through A/V integrator, S&L Integrated, installing a Martin Audio WPS Wavefront Precision line array system.
‘We’ve had a long-standing relationship with Shawn Walden, the Worship Pastor at Apex Baptist,’ says S&L Integrated Director of Operations, Gage Helton. ‘When they realised their previous audio infrastructure was holding back their worship experience, he reached out to us to design a complete, top-to-bottom system redesign.’
The primary driver for the upgrade was to enhance overall intelligibility and worship engagement: ‘While the church had grown significantly, the old system just couldn’t keep up,’ Helton continues. ‘Speech clarity was lost due to a lack of coverage, particularly in and under the balcony sections. The upgrade was also designed to remove previous technical barriers to elevate their Sunday morning experience, building a scalable platform that could support future growth and higher-production events.’
Sunday morning worship is the heartbeat of the space, but outside of these services, the sanctuary also hosts special musical events, holiday productions, youth gatherings, and conferences. ‘They needed a system that could seamlessly transition between subtle, high-intelligibility spoken word and high-energy, full-spectrum concert-level reinforcement without distortion or fatigue,’ Helton says.
The sanctuary layout comprises a large main floor with deep balcony and highly reflective sidewalls. ‘Acoustically, it was a classic house-of-worship puzzle,’ Helton says. ‘High RT60 reverb times, flutter echo off the side walls and balcony face, and severe acoustic shadowing under and above the balcony.’
S&L addressed this by combining physical acoustic treatment on the walls and balcony face with the precision directional array control of a Martin Audio WPS system. The new system uses flown hangs of ten Martin Audio WPS elements per side, driven in single-box resolution. A flown centre array comprising three SXHF218 set in a cardioid configuration delivers extends the low end, to help keep energy off the stage.
Additionally, six Martin Audio FlexPoint FP6 loudspeakers act as front fill, while six FlexPoint FP4 enclosures provide upper-balcony fill. ‘I look for a fill to get out of the way and do what it’s supposed to,’ Helton notes. ‘Martin Audio’s FlexPoint models are small and sound great.’
The system is powered by three Martin Audio iKon iK81 and three iK42 amplifiers. Martin Audio Display software was used to model the space and define trim heights, pick points, and x/y dimensions. ‘It is one of the easiest PA modelling products I have used,’ Helton reports. ‘We also use it as a sales tool to show the client what coverage is going to look like in their space.
‘The room sounds open, warm, and exceptionally clear,’ he continues. ‘Vocals sit effortlessly on top of the mix without ever feeling harsh or pushed, and the low-end coupling from the flown cardioid sub array gives worship music high-fidelity impact without room boominess.’
The response has been overwhelmingly positive from church leadership, staff and congregation: ‘They’ve told us it has elevated their entire Sunday morning worship environment, which is the ultimate compliment for us at S&L Integrated,’ Helton confirms.
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