St Paul’s Lutheran Church modernises with Fulcrum
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: Facilitating its transition to a more contemporary worship format while also solving long-standing intelligibility issues, St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minnesota has been outfitted with a new Fulcrum Acoustic audio system by local systems integrator Intermedia Systems Group. The church reflects the town’s proud German heritage and features traditional architecture with high ceilings, wooden pews and large glass and plaster surfaces which makes sound transmission problematic.
‘St Paul's has a medium-sized sanctuary that seats 300 to 400, and the reverb time is under 2s,’ outlined Intermedia president, Doug Klein. ‘But they had two or three small sound systems that were tied together, and it simply wasn't functional for what they were doing. Spoken word was reproduced through three soffit speakers that were entirely inadequate, so intelligibility was a major issue. The worship band came through a separate system that relied on multiple wireless subsystems and two submixers. As a result, the sound was over-compressed, not to mention potential issues with wireless interference.’
The solution specified by Intermedia relied on a pair of Fulcrum Acoustic DX1295 loudspeaker arrays for the main reinforcement, a Fulcrum Sub115 subwoofer flown alongside the main arrays above the altar area and a delayed DX1295 cabinet set back roughly 12m and centred to cover the balcony and rear seating areas. Processing and control is via a Symetrix Radius 12x8 EX.
Furthermore, a pair of RX699s were installed as sidefills for the transepts. ‘It's a wide church,’ Mr Klein noted, ‘and the RX699s provide intelligibility to the side seating areas.’
‘St Paul's space is large in terms of cubic volume, and it's very live,’ added Intermedia system salesman, Joel Evermann. ‘We needed to place the speakers where they could cover the direct field without interfering with sightlines or distracting from the beauty of the room, and without acoustically overexciting the space. We worked closely with Fulcrum Acoustic to get custom paint to match the space and they did a wonderful job. If you aren't looking for the speakers, they pretty much disappear.’
Intermedia's strong relationship with the leadership of St Paul's was crucial to helping the entire process go smoothly. ‘We worked very closely with them to understand their needs intimately,’ recalled Mr Evermann. ‘It was important to earn their confidence and trust, and in return, they were wonderful to work with. The Fulcrum speakers delivered the goods, too. When the system went in, there were a lot of smiles.’