Four Ohio Churches opt for Bosch Vari-directional Array

‘The bottom line is that we’ve demoed this system in four different churches, and ended up installing it in each one. So we’re four for four, and those churches are just ecstatic,’ explained Tim Badger, president of Alstage Sound & Lighting in Apple Creek, Ohio.

Mr Badger’s initial experience with the Vari-directional Array came at St John’s United Church of Christ in Dover, Ohio, whose sanctuary is almost 33m in length and over 12m wide, with a 6m balcony on the wall opposite the altar. The room has stucco block walls, lots of stained glass, minimal carpeting on the hard floor, and a 10m peaked ceiling of solid walnut. The organ and choir used in the church’s traditional services benefit from the cathedral-like sound of the hard-surfaced interior, but for many congregants it used to be a constant challenge to make out what the pastor was saying.

Part of the problem was the positioning of the old PA system’s two 12-inch two-way loudspeakers, which were mounted high on the front wall and pointed straight out toward the rear wall. By directing sound energy over the congregation’s heads and onto a highly reflective surface, the system added volume without aiding the comprehension of the spoken word. A staggered multi-box system running down each side might have improved the coverage pattern issue, keeping the sound on the seats and off the walls. But both the boxes themselves and the wiring required to reach them would have been out of place in the church’s traditional interior.

‘When I discussed the staggered speaker option with the church I told them there was no way to hide the wiring without using lots of wire mould,’ recalled Mr Badger. ‘That was an issue for them. And then I remembered that Bosch had recently come out with the Vari-directional Array here in the US. So I contacted our representative, Jason Jacquemain at C.L. Pugh in Brunswick, Ohio, and he brought in a demo unit that we set up for the church to use for two services.

‘The church was so pleased with what they heard that they gave me the go-ahead right then and there,’ continued Mr Badger. ‘They were able to hear the spoken word clearly with exceptional coverage, and they were very happy about not needing to install staggered speakers and the ugly wire mould that requires.’

Mr Badger believes that demoing has been the key to getting his customers to understand what the Vari-directional Array can do for them. ‘Next to a full acoustical treatment of the room – which costs a lot more and creates its own aesthetic issues in traditional spaces – this is the best solution we’ve seen so far for reverberant rooms,’ he stated. ‘But when people just look at a picture of it without having heard it, and you tell them what it costs, you’re maybe going to raise a few eyebrows. With a demo they can hear the difference it makes in their own room, especially when you steer the coverage pattern with the system’s built-in DSP. It’s amasing to hear how the intelligibility can be increased so much.’

‘We ended up needing only one vertical array, which was made up of one LA3-VARI-BH base unit and one LA3-VARI-E extension,’ stated Mr Badger. Mounted with the bottom 3.5m up on the stage-left wall, the array is close to 2.5m tall but less than 6-inches wide. ‘It’s positioned to blend into the aesthetics,’ Continued Mr Badger. ‘You hardly notice that it’s there.’

The success with the Vari-directional Array at St John’s has since been repeated at three other area churches with similarly reverberant traditional interiors. ‘Two of them would have needed staggered multi-speaker systems. The other might have been a large point-source cab in the ceiling peak, but we never got that far because I knew that the Bosch solution would be a great fit. All of them are amazed at being able to understand the spoken word like they’ve never been able to before,’ concluded Mr Badger. ‘They’re very relieved to have finally solved the intelligibility problems that they’ve struggled with for years.’

www.boschcommunications.com