Cincinnati-based Crossroads Church opened its eighth location this year — transforming a 90,000-square-foot former Sears department store at Dayton Mall into a vibrant community space. And with their choice of audio systems for the space, Crossroads became the first house of worship to combine an L-Acoustics L Series concert sound system with L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal technology, creating a true 360-degree spatial audio environment in the 1,560-seat auditorium.
HouseRight, a national house of worship integrator, designed and installed the first of its kind system, which pairs L Series loudspeakers with A Series out-fills and X Series surrounds. The configuration creates a fully immersive sound space for worship services, concerts, and theatrical productions.
Full 360-Degree Immersive Surround
The system features five L-Acoustics L2D enclosures as the scene arrays, with far left and right extension arrays of A10i. Six KS28 subwoofers are flown in two cardioid hangs of three boxes behind the center L2D, bolstered by groundstacked SB15 subs. Thirteen coaxial X8i spread across the stage lip provide spatial front-fill, while A15i systems handle out-fill duties.
The immersive experience extends throughout the house with X8i and X12 enclosures serving as surrounds and fills, creating a true 360-degree sound field. An L-ISA Processor II and Controller at FOH drive the room’s object-based mix, giving engineers a new kind of creative control.
Luke Hesher, HouseRight General Manager, Church Relations, says the Crossroads installation was unique in deploying 28 X8i speakers as a comprehensive immersive surround system. “The speakers positioned beside and behind the audience spread sounds and effects throughout the whole space, creating a very dynamic environment and stretching the sound stage much wider than a traditional house system,” he says. “It’s very impressive.” The room’s geometry—not too wide—brings the full immersive effect to every seat. But equally important, Hesher notes, is how immersive sound aligns with Crossroads’ engagement strategy.
“Crossroads is always looking to push the boundaries technologically, asking, ‘how can we create an experience that really draws people in?’” Hesher explains. “Knowing their desire to leverage technology to create excellent, amazing experiences, immersive is the next big thing for churches, which is why we originally recommended L-ISA to them.”
But technology alone wasn't the deciding factor. L-Acoustics’ sonic performance proved equally crucial. “We love the clarity and the SPL we’re able to get from this system,” Hesher says, “while also not having too long of a line-array length that would impede sight lines to the LED screens. L-ISA delivers an amazing immersive experience.”
Patrick Buescher, AVL leader of the church’s Experience Team Operations, says immersive audio has been part of Crossroads’ DNA from the start. “Since the beginning of Crossroads, we’ve valued immersive experiences,” he says. “At all of our sites, we deploy surround speakers that we’re able to matrix off the mixer to create a more engaging environment. We’ve always been a firm believer in the value of creating amazing environments where people can experience a sense of wonder in the message of the Gospel. So it just made sense as we continue to evaluate how we can do that well, and L-Acoustics L-ISA fit that goal here.”
Consistency Across All Campus Locations
L-Acoustics and L-ISA are also part of a long-range technical strategy that will eventually see the church install similar systems throughout its other locations. That will offer worshipers a consistent experience no matter where they choose to attend and bring the church’s technical staff a familiar workspace on every campus.
“We are driving towards a world where every room is consistent, and we can have the exact same experience across every site,” states Dave Kendall, Crossroads Church Director of Site Audio. “When you walk into a Crossroads site, the audio experience is going to be uniformly excellent. It’s going to be impactful, and you’re going to be able to feel it in your chest. First hearing the L-ISA technology was an amazing experience, and it’s going to be part of that effort going forward.”
Luke Stickford, Site Audio Engineer for Crossroads Dayton, is finding that L-ISA technology functions as an instrument itself in the church’s music. Placement of vocals and instruments imparts a new dimension to the worship experience, with vocals now positioned within the congregation to bring unprecedented audience engagement to services.
“I’ll take a vocal mix with reverb from the console into L-ISA and place the left and right channel as far back and as wide as it can go in the spatial field, as to engage a portion of the surround system,” he explains. “During larger parts of a song, I’ll ride that fader, and what it gives you is this really cool, massive vocal feel. You have the huge frontline vocal coming across the frontal system, followed by the reflections of the room engine mixed with that rear vocal mix. It just envelops you.”
Another technique involves subtly panning key elements—a tambourine or organ pad, for example—slowly across the front scene system, subtly encouraging worshipers to follow along and drawing them deeper into the music. “It’s been a lot of experimentation so far, but the possibilities are really tremendous,” he says.
Stickford has discovered he can rely far less on conventional processing thanks to L-ISA’s spatial capabilities. By placing vocals at 15% distance from the front of the spatial field and engaging the room engine through surrounds, he creates natural reflections without console reverb. “The room engine itself is incredibly powerful,” he says. “For intimate moments with just vocals and piano, or when the congregation is singing together, I can create this full, enveloping sound that brings everyone into the moment.”
The church’s tech team finds L-ISA fits another unique aspect of Crossroads’ vision: keeping service content fresh and its delivery impactful each week. Instead of simply delivering new content through a conventional PA system, the L-ISA system itself becomes part of both the music and the message thanks to its ability to position objects in a sound field.
“For instance, one of our creative team members will have a vision for a production, and they’ll say, ‘I want this script element coming from the left rear,’” Kendall explains. “The process before L-ISA was cumbersome and difficult to execute. What we’ve found now is that it’s just so much easier to achieve almost anything like that.”
“In a sense,” he concludes, “we’re perpetually a creative startup looking for fresh experiences every week, and L-ISA makes that a much more intuitive process.”
For more details on Crossroads Church, visit www.crossroads.net. HouseRight can be found online at www.houseright.com.
Please visit L-Acoustics at www.l-acoustics.com.
