While the room's four second reverb time made for a majestic choir and organ sound, the drums and guitars of the church's contemporary services were a challenge to tame. And for sermons and spoken word presentations, the intelligibility factor was more than a little problematic. The church needed a solution that would provide high intelligibility without impacting the room's aesthetics, and found it in Community Entasys loudspeakers.
"They had tried a number of other systems over the years, but it usually involved conventional speaker cabinets flown too high to achieve any directionality," says Jay Dunkle of Radi-O-Sound Communications. "Intelligibility was a major issue for them, particularly since they don't follow along in a missallete, so they rely solely on the spoken word."
Four Entasys cabinets cover an audience area of approximately 40ft by 60ft. The loudspeakers are powered by a single EV CPS-series amplifier, with Biamp DSP providing auto-mixing and EQ functions. "Since the ENTASYS cabinets are true line arrays, they provide a very even distribution of the sound for long throws, and their directivity eliminates nearly all the reflected sound," says Dunkle. "Being able to cover the whole space with only four cabinets also helped tremendously in increasing intelligibility."
Matching the room's aesthetics was also easily achieved. "We sprayed the cabinets using the same color paint that was on the walls," says Dunkle. "They really look great." Dunkle reports the church and congregation are exceptionally pleased. "The sound system literally received an ovation from the parishioners," he says.
(Jim Evans)
