Tannoy covers reconfigured St Leander Church
Published: WORSHIP
US: St Leander Catholic Church in San Leandro, California, has reconfigured its sanctuary with the aim of bringing the worship experience closer to its members. The redesign included the installation of a new public address system featuring Tannoy QFlex digitally steerable column array loudspeakers.
Leo’s Professional Audio, based in Oakland, California, was asked to assist in designing and installing the new sound system. ‘The redesign involved moving the altar from the back of the rectangular sanctuary to the center of one of the longer walls,’ explained Graham Cooper, vice president of the contracting division at Leo’s Professional Audio. ‘The pews were moved to create semi-circular seating around the new alter area. As a result, the new system was designed to cover an area that was much wider than deep.’
The sanctuary is a ‘vast cavernous space’ with all of the hard, reflective surfaces expected in an older, traditional sanctuary. Therefore, it was imperative to steer the sound to the seating areas and minimise any bounce back from the hard surfaces.
Mr Cooper placed two custom painted QFlex 24 array powered loudspeakers to the left and right of the altar. The structure of the altar platform and the location of the choir area stage right dictated the placement of the loudspeakers at 4.5m above the floor.
‘Because the room was very wide, there were a few seats in the sanctuary that were not covered by the QFlex system,’ noted Mr Cooper. ‘To ensure every seat was a “good” seat we installed four Tannoy Di5DCs spread out along the front wall so that they would hit the areas at the far ends of the room as well as right under the QFlex lousdpeakers. The end result was very impressive.’
The original altar area, set off from the main sanctuary, was converted to additional seating which required extra audio support. A single Tannoy i7 passive column bracket-mounted to an adjacent column, provides the coverage.
A nearby confessional turned rack room is home to a Lab.gruppen C Series 5:4X amplifier to power the Di5DCs and i7 boxes. The rack includes a Rane digital signal processor for delay and EQ supplemental and two Rane auto mixers control the microphones and CD player. To provide easy on/off of the system and minimal interference to system set-up, Mr Cooper used a Lyntek PD510-4 sequenced power system with the on/off panel located outside of the locked rack room.
‘The system is literally push and play,’ he explained. ‘They don’t even have to open the rack room to get everything up and running. The coverage is outstanding and the vocal intelligibility better than ever before. The parishioners are absolutely delighted with the new system.’