Atlanta’s Tabernacle venue equipped with JBL VTX system

California-based Sound Image has enhanced the house PA system at the Tabernacle in Atlanta with JBL VTX line arrays.

The venue – constructed as a Baptist church in 1910 and known informally as ‘The Tabby’ – has a seating capacity of 2,600 people and has changed very little structurally in its 100-plus years. It features an open, standing-room space on the ground level, along with three balconies at varying heights.

According to Billy Lindsey, FOH Engineer at the Tabernacle, the design of the building creates a visually striking, but sonically challenging environment. “Since it was built as a church, the Tabernacle was architecturally designed to amplify preachers, so you can talk from the stage and be heard well into the balconies,” he said. “Take that, add modern music and the stage volumes that some musicians can achieve, and you get a rough idea of what the acoustics are like.”

For the main system, Richard Davis of Sound Image and his team installed 24 VTX V25 full-size line array elements (12 per side), with 12 S28 arrayable subs (six per side), and left-right hangs of three VERTEC VT4886 subcompact line array elements, each for out-fill. Crown IT12000HD amplifiers power the system, which also features dbx DriveRack 4800 processing.

The third floor of the Tabernacle also features a VIP lounge called The Room, which is equipped with a main PA system of four VRX932LA Constant Curvature loudspeakers and two VRX918S subwoofers per side.

Lindsey also noted the advantages of the Crown IT12000HD amplifiers, which include the OmniDriveHD DSP engine, specifically optimised for fast and efficient audio processing. “What’s great is everything is in those amplifiers, they have the architecture in the amps all ready to go, which is amazing,” Lindsey continued. “We have four amp racks – two at house left and two at house right – and each one has a rack with eight amps per side and four zones, with a secondary amp rack handling the front fills and subs.

“If I had to measure the level improvement of VTX over the previous system on a scale of one to ten, I’d go with a 12. The high-frequency intelligibility – what you really need to cut through the muck – is incredible. And the turnkey package of VTX with Crown I-TechHD is a hip combination. I can comfortably say the Tabernacle is now the best-sounding room in Atlanta.”

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