With a fan-shaped sanctuary seating approximately 500 congregants, the Bridgewater Church of the Brethren meets in an open, inviting and beautifully space. However, its sound reinforcement system – which dates back to the construction of the church’s current sanctuary in 1998 – was broken and outdated.
Located on the campus of Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia, brought local integrator RTW Media to transform its sound system – as it had in the college chapel earlier in 2020. RTW replaced the system with a Danley Sound Labs point source system, taking it ‘from two out of ten to ten out of ten’ in the words of RTW Media Logistics Manager, Zack Guida.
‘Bridgewater Church of the Brethren has a stunningly beautiful sanctuary with a 65ft ceiling at its peak,’ Guida explains. ‘They’re very into music and regularly bring notable Christian musicians in for services and concerts. However, their existing loudspeakers were only mid-grade when they went in over twenty years ago – they were flat sounding and threw energy all over the ceiling and walls. One driver was blown completely. However, every sound company they called to replace the old system would look way up at the existing cluster and say, “nope”. Since they were positioned over the lip of the stage, there was no way to get up there except by scaffolding. We were the first company that would entertain the idea.
‘The walls are reflective and the room is pretty live,’ he continues. ‘They wanted something that was custom-designed for the space, which we knew meant something that was really directional so that all the energy would be focused on the seats and the ears. Full-frequency, phase-coherent audio with impressive pattern control is Danley’s specialty. It was really just a matter of matching the right models to the specifics of their sanctuary.’
A Danley SH96 flown directly above the stage covers more than 70 per cent of the seating. The box uses 11 drivers coherently summed through a single horn using Synergy Horn technologies. A pair of SM60F loudspeakers flanks the SH96 to provide fill to either side.
Although Covid-19 has prevented congregants from taking in the new sound set-up, the technical staff are excited by the new system’s capabilities: ‘The system has so much headroom and horsepower – it won’t break a sweat for a standard service,’ Guida says. ‘They’ve already run tests miking instruments like flutes and brass that weren’t even reproducing through the old system, and they soar through the Danleys.
‘Things are so good that we’re already working on phase two,’ he adds. ‘They’re considering Danley Nanos for choir monitors so that the church’s unusually large choir can get the same experience.’
More: www.danleysoundlabs.com
