Northridge, CA--Systems integrator Electro Acoustics recently designed and installed a new audio system at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Richardson, TX.
With an acoustically challenging worship space and outdated audio equipment to boot, the 30-year-old Church needed a new system that would provide clear speech during the services. "The Church has a tile floor, brick walls, a wood ceiling, and pews without cushions, so there were some issues from an acoustic standpoint," said Chris Jordan, president of Electro Acoustics. "They also had at least two previous systems in the space, and there was a definite need for a sound system renovation."
Jordan and his team took some measures to make the 600-seat worship space more acoustically friendly. "We measured the reverberation time in the space and installed acoustic panels to reduce that time to an acceptable level," Jordan said. "We also discovered that they had a return air vent that made a lot of noise, so we designed a baffle to counteract that. Those two changes made a substantial difference."
With those improvements in place, Electro Acoustics designed an audio system featuring three arrays in a left-center-right configuration, hung from the ceiling above the main stage. "We found that the directivity of line arrays is superior to single, 2-way boxes and the directivity of line arrays provides a lower articulation loss of consonants," Jordan noted.
The line arrays are spaced approximately 12 feet from each other, with each array containing three JBL VRX928LA line array loudspeakers and one VRX915S arrayable subwoofer.
Having used VRX line arrays on multiple projects in the past, Jordan found them to be the ideal solution at St. Paul the Apostle Church. "The VRX loudspeakers are very easy to use, you can quickly hang and snap them together, so they're easy to install," he said. "Aesthetics were important in this project, and the VRX loudspeakers look very nice. The price was also very reasonable, and the performance is just outstanding."
