Bose RoomMatch provides solution for classic Catholic church
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: When Steven Brown, system design and sales engineer at Progressive Electronics in Kansas City, Missouri, saw the interior of St Thomas More Parish Church, he knew right away that the issues prompting the church to search for a new sound system would not be resolved with a typical line array system. St Thomas More is a traditional Catholic church, with tall parallel walls and a high, pointed ceiling. ‘You need some very special characteristics in a sound system to correctly handle that,’ said Mr Brown, who selected a system consisting of Bose RoomMatch speakers and PowerMatch amplifiers for the job.
Progressive Electronics assembled a single array, hung at the front of the sanctuary directly above the altar, consisting of Bose RM9010, RM9020, RM7005 and RM7010 array module loudspeakers, powered by a pair of PM8500N PowerMatch amplifiers. This was supplemented with six Bose Panaray MA12 modular line array loudspeakers used as fills around architectural details, ‘One of the priests told me that this was the first time he’d ever been able to hear a reading clearly in the church,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Line arrays are fine when it comes to vertical dispersion coverage, which works very well in many contemporary-style churches. But with traditional churches like St Thomas, what you’re looking for is predictable and definable horizontal sound control, and that’s something that the Bose RoomMatch array modules handle magnificently. A line array system typically needs to be installed in pairs in order to cover a wide space, since they’re designed for vertical dispersion, but that creates sonic overlap and resulting interference that impedes intelligibility. The Bose RoomMatch modules can be configured in a single progressive array, like we did at St Thomas More, and the result is even coverage across the entire space with minimal excitement off the walls and ceiling.’
The single array of Bose RoomMatch speakers was also a good aesthetic fit for St Thomas’ traditional interior, as it was custom-painted to match the sanctuary walls and ceiling.
At the Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church in nearby Overland Park, Kansas, where Brown installed a RoomMatch system last year, the pastor told him that the congregation members with hearing problems sent him letters praising the sound quality of the new system. ‘The same thing is happening at St Thomas,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Those with hearing issues say that they now can hear the services like never before. The RoomMatch system gets the job done.’