The Detroit suburb of Shelby Township is home to St John Vianney Catholic Church, whose vast nave rectangular nave features brick-lined walls and soaring slanted ceilings that culminate in a glass-encased cupola, allowing natural light to bathe the altar below. Although open and airy, this modern architectural dignity compromises the speech intelligibility of liturgical services.
Staff at the 1,200 church contacted Robert Wisnieski – owner and system designer at RMW Productions, to design a new audio system for its sanctuary – who recommended Renkus-Heinz’s ICLive X Series of steerable arrays to bring them even coverage and high intelligibility. ‘The reverberation in St John Vianney’s nave was pretty significant,’ Wisnieski says. ‘It’s a wide room with high ceilings, so the acoustics were not ideal. After looking at several different loudspeaker series, we felt the ICLive X was the best fit for the sanctuary’s needs.’
RMW Productions installed four ICLX loudspeakers around the sanctuary with their output steered toward the congregation’s seating. The ICLive X Series offers high-quality, highly directional sound for any space, regardless of shape or size. From liturgical churches like St John Vianney’s to massive contemporary worship events, faith communities can build the solution for their needs.
The ICLX steerable array module includes six 19mm compression drivers coaxially mounted in front of two 8-inch woofers. The woofer arrangements maintain significant pattern control down to lower frequencies, providing system designers with horsepower, steerability and directivity. For a loudspeaker that can output high SPLs, the ICLX is surprisingly compact and discreet. Additionally, the Acoustic Source Multiplier (ASM) waveguide allows the high-frequency section to be coaxially mounted in front of the low-frequency section, producing a consistent and symmetrical wave along the length of the array.
The church staff are reportedly thrilled with the improvement, with the masses intelligible throughout the nave – even parishioners sitting in the back of the large sanctuary.
‘ICLive X loudspeakers are great for challenging acoustic environments like St John Vianney,’ Wisnieski says. ‘Renkus-Heinz’s beam steering is a wonderful solution for reverberant spaces.’
