Myungsung Presbyterian Church Upgrades To DiGiCo Quantum 852

Founded by senior pastor Dr. Kim Sam Whan in 1980, Myungsung Presbyterian Church has grown to become the largest Presbyterian church in the world. Based in Myung-il-dong, Seoul, the church now oversees more than 30 church plants and an additional ten screen-based video churches, all supported by a central technical operation known for its commitment to excellence.

After more than 14 years of reliable service from a DiGiCo SD7 console, Technical Director Kim Dong Jun initiated a careful and deliberate upgrade process to ensure the church's main sanctuary remained technically future-proof. The decision ultimately led to the installation of a DiGiCo Quantum 852 console, supplied by local distributor Soundus, at the church's largest location.

"I was very comfortable with the SD7, but after more than a decade of continuous use, the control surface was showing some signs of wear and tear," Jun explains. "A digital console is just like a big computer, so it is possible for the screens to gradually start to degrade. We mix audio each day and the SD7 had never let us down, but we didn’t want to risk any future failure."

The Quantum 852 now resides in the 6,500-seat Hallelujah Sanctuary, home to a 1,000-person choir and a 50-piece orchestra. The sanctuary hosts five services every Sunday, each attended by thousands of worshippers, with many more joining online. Audio from additional chapels and smaller rooms is delivered via fibre to a central control room where a second Quantum 852 is installed.

The scale of production requires a high channel count, with 20 DPA stereo paired microphones suspended above the choir, plus microphones for musicians and in-ear monitoring systems for soloists and worship leaders. The console's capacity is therefore a key asset.

Between 2022 and 2025, Jun worked with the church elders to secure the budget for the upgrade, a process made more complex by the flawless performance of the existing SD7. The arrival of the Quantum 852 during this period ultimately proved decisive, with hands-on experience at the KOBA Show 2024 confirming the choice.

"DiGiCo seems to know exactly what engineers need," he recalled. "Like the SD7, the Quantum 852 incorporates dual engine redundancy over the Optocore fibre ring, but with much newer hardware. The preamps sound amazing and the noise floor is excellent; I feel like I don't need to make as many adjustments as I did before because everything sounds really clean. The overall audio quality of the Quantum 852 is incredible, and the congregants can now identify even the slightest musical nuance."

Installed in late spring 2025 alongside SD-Racks fitted with 32-bit cards, the Quantum 852 can receive up to 384 inputs, providing significant headroom for future expansion. Training delivered by Soundus has helped both professional and volunteer teams become proficient with the new system.

"Both the professional and volunteer sound teams enjoy the functionality and ease of use of DiGiCo features," Jun expanded. "By turning on the virtual soundcheck and playing a past mix through the main PA, the engineers have easily familiarised themselves with the functions, controls, settings and parameters."

With the addition of the Fourier transform.engine and the v20 software upgrade, Jun has embraced a new level of creative exploration, taking advantage of an expanded suite of plugins.

"With the processing available in the transform.engine, I now have access to an even more powerful DiGiCo ecosystem," he confirmed. "I can feel the difference in the tube processing as the tube amp modelling on the Mustard gives me the freedom to shape the sound as I want it. The Soothe plugin is a resonance suppressor that cleans up the audio signal and to date is one of the most demanded plugins. The additional compressors added to the Mustard processing are excellent, using Mustard and Chilli makes the 852 feel like a completely unparallelled console."

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