St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, NYC, features 54 Kobra-KK102 line array elements in white throughout the cathedral.
K-array USA opened its stateside headquarters in the greater Boston area in December 2018. And with it came the craftsmanship and aesthetics its Florence, Italy, birthplace is renowned for.
“This day and age, people want to have pleasing immersive sound without the look of traditional wood/plastic boxes,” notes Rusty Waite, president of the company’s U.S. operation.
Always cognizant of churches’ needs for products aesthetically worthy of the most reverent (and rockin’) of spaces, Church.Design asked Waite to expand on his company’s products and philosophy.
Church.Design: There’s such a range of requirements for loudspeakers in today’s church spaces. How do you address them all?
Waite: Now more than ever, people want to have pleasing immersive sound without the look of traditional bulky wood or plastic boxes. K-array offers a very compelling product portfolio that capitalizes on the innovative technology in our line arrays, from the extremely small four-inch Lyzard-KZ14 to our slim, flat panel Concert Series loudspeakers.
Rusty Waite, President, K-array USA
Also, contemporary churches sometimes have very challenging acoustical spaces which require optimization tools to be able to offer equal coverage over the complete audience area. With our tight pattern control and the ability to electronically beam steer our Concert Series speakers, we are confident that with the correct design and integration, our solutions are second to none.
Church.Design: Churches, as God’s houses, have a ‘looks reputation’ to live up to. Was it K-array’s design intention to cross the divide between great sound and invisible products that allow a space’s architectural beauty or interior design aesthetic to come through?
Waite: Since 1990, we have concentrated our efforts in the design and manufacture of unique audio solutions never dreamed of before, with the goal of providing great sounding systems that are very pleasing to the eye and adaptable to many applications. Our audio solutions are made of premium materials like aluminum and stainless steel, rendering them resistant and reliable ... they can be customized in any RAL color, while most are available in luxury finishes like 24K gold.
K-array KK102 line array in polished aluminum
Church.Design: Focusing on the aural attributes alone, when a church specifier chooses speakers from K-array for a given project, what can they expect in terms of sound? What are some of the high points of K-array loudspeakers?
Waite: When you use our amplifiers or our powered systems, the voicing across the line of speakers is quite similar, so you can easily mix our speakers to the needs of the area and still have a consistent sound without too much work on the tuning. Our solutions are full-range and are ideal for both spoken word and musical reproduction. We have the ability to create an exceptional audio experience for a room, employing just our small solutions, as well as providing a more powerful live sound provided by our portable systems. Given their compact form factor, they really surprise users with their high-performing output, generating a room full of K-faces, as we call them.
However, we design with the intention to not only look good, but to provide solutions in those hard-to-reach areas that need better intelligibility. We have some of the most efficient, compact subwoofers in our Rumble line that are very easy to hide, and our larger speakers from our Concert Series benefit not only from having a slim frame, but [are] also very innovative technology that [delivers] a really large sound, ensuring exceptionally high performance. You don’t need as many speakers and could really cover a 1,500-seat sanctuary with the Mugello-KH2 on each side, allowing the designer [to] maintain an unobtrusive layout for the set and lighting designers.
K-array USA headquarters, Boston
Church.Design: Tell us about support to the church market. How do you support specifiers and installers, and ultimately church end-users who have K-array products in their worship spaces?
Waite: We offer design assistance on a project basis as well as host workshops on K-array technology through our K-academy educational program so that users are able to fully optimize their K-array system. We have a full warehouse on the east coast of the U.S., as well as a service center to handle any additional [questions] as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Church.Design: What new technologies will you offer going deeper into 2019 and into 2020?
Waite: We just launched several installation products at the ISE in February, like the mini Lyzard-KZ1 which is the smallest point source speaker that is only 2 cm tall, and also new Azimut systems to cover a wide range of intimate environments.
At InfoComm we will be launching our first lighting and audio solution that marries our innovative audio with high-end lighting technology. They are designed more for providing background music in areas like lobbies and green rooms.
Church.Design: If you could list three attributes that define K-array and the experience church end users can expect from your loudspeakers, what would those three be?
Waite: Pure Array Technology (PAT) – offering more options to seamlessly integrate into existing and new structures while keeping the speakers out of vital sight lines.
Slim Array Technology (SAT) – offering more natural and linear response with quick impulse response.
Electronic Beam Steering (EBS) – optimizing audio coverage in even the most complicated venues.
Church.Design: Are there any closing thoughts you want to share?
Waite: When K-array parted with Sennheiser in 2015 as distributor in the U.S., we took the time to develop the brand and target specific AV sectors and regions resulting in many high-profile K-array installations, such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the World Trade Center Oculus Transportation Hub and several Broadway shows. Now that K-array has taken an active role in the U.S. distribution model and opened a subsidiary, K-array USA, I feel we are poised to recapture the imagination of architects, designers, acousticians, consultants, integrators and end users across the board in the U.S. 2019 has already started off far-exceeding even my high expectations.
