Fohhn designs ‘talking cross’ for French church

France: The picturesque 19^th century Church of Saint Jean-Baptiste de Mauléon in the Basque region of France, featuring fine stained-glass windows, is a cornerstone of the community as well as attracting many of the region’s visitors. However, the building’s acoustics have left much to be desired, with generations of worshippers struggling, amid strong reflections and reverberation, to hear the detailed content of services.

With the church’s sound system due for an update, Régis Durouchoux, sound engineer from RDX in Tours (a company specialising in church sound reinforcement), was keen to pursue an idea he had nurtured for a while: building a loudspeaker system into a cross, which could be suspended at the front of the church to provide ‘invisible,’ high-quality sound coverage. It was a concept that, in all his years of experience, Mr Durouchoux had never been able to implement due to technological limitations. However, at the suggestion of Daniel Borreau from German loudspeaker manufacturer Fohhn Audio’s French distribution partner, Rock-Audio Distribution, Mr Durouchoux tested one of Fohhn’s Linea Focus line source systems with integrated Beam Steering technology. Specially designed for use in challenging acoustic environments, these loudspeakers were conceived to provide direct, targeted sound coverage along with high levels of speech intelligibility and music reproduction fidelity. The systems’ slim dimensions also enable discreet visual integration into a range of installations.

Convinced by the demonstration of the system’s sonic performance and pattern steering capabilities, Mr Durouchoux requested a Linea Focus LFI-220 system, subtly incorporated within a cruciform design, to be manufactured at the Fohhn factory in Nürtingen. Fohhn Audio systems can be found in churches and cathedrals worldwide, each project having brought its own particular acoustic or architectural challenges. However, the commission to produce what is probably the world’s first ‘talking cross’ provided Fohn’s engineers with an altogether different challenge.

The slender, 2.2m, electronically steerable loudspeaker is housed in the vertical axis of the finished cross. The loudspeaker is equipped with 16 separate 4-inch neodymium drivers, an integrated 16-channel DSP-equipped amplifier and 16 separate DSP channels. The loudspeaker’s vertical sound inclination angle can be adjusted between +/- 40-degrees and its vertical beam width between 0- to 90-degrees. This control is said to allow the speaker beam to precisely target the congregation, while minimizing reflections from the church’s stone walls, ceiling and floor, with a special algorithm that further reduces the effect of unwanted side lobes. Using Fohhn’s Audio Soft control software, pattern adjustments can be made in real-time, in 0.1-degree increments. Before suspension over the altar, the loudspeaker housing, its front grille and the cruciform casement were all painted in a custom gold RAL colouring to complement the church’s interior.

The church’s new sound system includes a number of other Fohhn loudspeakers. Coverage for the choir is provided by two Linea-Series AL-50 systems. Two AL-150 systems cover the transept, while two further Linea Focus LFI-120 systems have been mounted in the nave. Four Linea-Series AL-10 loudspeakers have been installed in the gallery of the first balcony, with two AL-100 systems covering the second balcony. Due to the church’s long reverberation time (9s to 10s), signal delays have been necessary for the transept, nave and gallery systems. A Fohhn D-4.750 DSP amplifier is used to drive the passive speaker systems. Day-to-day speaker control can be carried out using an FR-10 Fohhn-Net Remote – a wall panel with programmable buttons that can be configured to control volume levels or room effect presets for different zones within the church.

The new system had its premiere at the Whit Sunday (Pentecost) service, reportedly delighting both Pastor Jeannot Etchetto and his congregation, the combination of state-of-the-art loudspeaker technology and ecclesiastical art said to provide clear speech transmission and superior intelligibility (things that were previously unknown at the church) while maintaining pleasing visual aesthetics. ‘The new system even translates the Basque [language],’ the pastor was heard to observe with some amusement.

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