Westside Family Church: L-ISA Hyperreal Sound Meets Architectural Grace
Westside Family Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Lenexa, Kansas, has a long history of embracing change to better serve its community since its founding in 1976. The church’s growth accelerated in the late 1990s, resulting in a multi-site ministry model with satellite campuses and a substantial online presence. Throughout this evolution, Westside has consistently invested in technology to enhance its worship experience. The latest example of this commitment is their adoption of L-Acoustics L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology paired with A10i loudspeakers. This system delivers superior clarity and coverage while fitting within the church’s unique architectural constraints.
The Challenge
The main worship space at Westside Family Church presented several unique and significant challenges for installing a new sound system. First, the room has an unusually low ceiling for its size—a centrally located catwalk further complicated matters by limiting the usable trim height for speaker placement. Additionally, the church utilizes a large 34-foot-by-14-foot projection screen for its services, making it crucial to maintain clear sightlines for all attendees. Traditional, bulky line arrays, which can protrude ten or more feet from the ceiling, were not a viable option because they would create visual obstacles and compromise the clean aesthetics and clear visuals the church needed. The team needed a solution that could deliver powerful, uniform sound without sacrificing visual aesthetics.
The Solution
To overcome these challenges, Westside Family Church partnered with Vantage Pro AV. Using L-Acoustics Soundvision 3D audio modeling software, the team determined that an L-ISA Hyperreal design, utilizing the compact A10i as the primary loudspeaker, was the ideal solution. This system was perfect for the room’s fan shape with stadium seating. The A10i’s small form factor, combined with its power and precise coverage, ensured every seat in the venue would have excellent sound. This design allowed the sound system to be brought lower to shoot up underneath the catwalk and fit perfectly within the room’s geometry. A key benefit of this particular L-ISA Hyperreal configuration is its minimal vertical footprint, typically located within five feet of the ceiling, which is a “game-changer” for churches that require powerful audio while maintaining clear sight lines. With L-ISA Hyperreal, this removes the distance between the stage and audience, allowing for a more connected experience.
The Result
The new system has completely transformed the worship experience for both the congregation and the production team. The enhanced clarity and sound quality have been particularly impactful for the church’s AVL Engineer, Obed Castillo, who had previously stepped away from hands-on mixing due to the old system’s lack of clarity. The L-ISA system’s intuitive design and powerful localization capabilities have also empowered the church’s volunteer staff, making object-based mixing accessible to everyone on the production team. The system offers creative possibilities that are changing how the church presents its message, allowing it to pan any instrument or person to a specific part of the stage, with everyone in the audience perceiving the sound from that location, regardless of where they are sitting.
Project photos
With our previous system, I had stepped away from hands-on mixing because the lack of clarity made it difficult to distinguish frequencies. But L-ISA completely changed that. The clarity is exceptional—even subtle EQ adjustments are immediately noticeable. Plus, the system’s localization capabilities give me new creative options. Instead of relying solely on EQ, I can enhance elements in the mix by adjusting their spatial positioning. The results have been so inspiring that I’ve gone from mixing just three services a year to being at the console any time a volunteer is not available, and I can step in at front-of-house.
