Rock Church

K-array’s small-format Mugello-KH2 line array system delivers high impact and coverage for Rock Church’s 3,000-seat worship space, saving the congregation money, space and power. As one of the largest churches in San Bernardino, California, Rock Church required an upgrade to its sound system, however the full extent was not known until the old system was being disassembled: of the 19 flown loudspeakers, only one and a half were found to be fully functional. After conducting a thorough demo with many professional audio manufacturers, the church’s audio engineer Darwin Tillery and his team made the choice for K-array for its Electronic Beam Steerable technology and its compactness which subsequently led to time and cost savings. 

The new sound system featuring Mugello-KH2 line array loudspeakers is drawing rave reviews from the congregation and the church’s tech team since they installed the new PA. “Man, the system is unreal,” says Tillery, who, along with several years of leadership experience on HOW tech staff, toured as FOH engineer for high-profile performers like New Edition, Sheila E, The Platters, Mel Tillis, Englebert Humperdink, BVD and MC Hammer. “At Rock Church, we have almost 3,000 seats, and its super wide. We were at 100 dB with 103 peaks at 71 feet with just four boxes per side. These boxes sound much louder than they look. Everyone is just staring at it saying, ‘How are you getting it to breathe that way.’ With the full band we expected to run out of PA, but we didn’t. Nothing was harsh, we had chest thumping bass and it just works.” 

The system includes just four KH2 full-range boxes per side. Two Thunder-KMT21 subs per side --- one flown, one on the floor --- round out the self-powered three-way system. The KH2s include dual eight-inch woofers and dual 1.4-inch compression drivers. The KMT21 subs each have a single 21-inch woofer. “The way K-array crosses over from the subs is much higher than other manufacturers. It’s not what you’d expect when you’re crossing from 21-inch subs to the eight-inch drivers in the KH2s, but the sound is seamless and more musical,” according to Tillery. “We’re also going green by saving on power,” he adds. “The previous system required 14 30-amp circuits. The first week with the new system we ran with one 20-amp circuit per side.” The church has since added another 20-amp circuit per side since the breakers are old and potentially unreliable.

None of the other systems we demoed had the digital steering. Also, with K-array we were able to go with the smallest loudspeaker hang to preserve our site lines to our side screens. Fewer boxes saved lots of money and we saved on weight, so less rigging was required. There was no structural engineering either since the new system was a fraction of the weight of our previous system.

Darwin Tillery (Rock Church audio engineer)