St. Madeleine's open ceiling promotes good acoustic diffusion but its ceramic tile floor, hardwood pews and painted walls contribute to an overall 'live' sound quality. In this environment, St. Madeleine's previous point-source audio system was unable to provide good vocal clarity and it suffered from uneven coverage, frequent feedback and a noticeable rear-wall bounce.
St. Madeleine's contacted Dominick Campana of Pro Sound Associates in Guilderland, NY to design a new sound system. Campana chose a Community Entasys ENT-FR full-range column coupled to an ENT-LF low-frequency column for each side of the chancel and a Community dSPEC226AN DSP processor for loudspeaker management and system equalization.
He installed three new Shure hanging microphones over the choir, a pair of Shure earset wireless microphones for the priests and three new amplifiers to power the system. The new audio system is a 'hands-off' design using Shure automatic mixers. Community painted the Entasys columns to blend with the church's interior.
Campana says St. Madeleine's is very pleased with their new audio system. "The intelligibility is great, the choir is happy with the music quality and we've virtually eliminated the feedback issue."
(Jim Evans)
