Noted for its pipe organ and stained-glass windows that dominate its sanctuary, Edenton Street United Methodist Church (ESUMC) in Raleigh, North Carolina, recently installed a Martin Audio O-Line micro line array, which blends discreetly into the 27-inch thick sandstone walls.
Designed for houses of worship, this aesthetic, slimline, columnar system was installed by local production house, RMB Audio, to replace a public address system that had served the church so dutifully more than an seven decades. The former PA had been installed within the chandelier during a rebuild of the church following a fire in 1957 but RMB founder, Cooper Cannady, felt that there was now a need for higher SPL and significant improved speech intelligibility.
Although Martin Audio’s dedicated Display prediction software indicated a 12-box solution, Cannady recognised that by increasing this to 16 cabinets – driven in two-box resolution from a pair of Martin Audio iKon iK81 multichannel amplifiers – he would achieve both floor and balcony coverage, while avoiding reflections from the balcony fascia.
‘The frequency response of O-Line [85Hz-18kHz] in a large voluminous space such as this better reduced LF resonance,’ he says. ‘At the same time, the sidelobe-free close spacing of five 21mm HF drivers ensured uninterrupted audio at the adjacent left and right pulpits, even though they are positioned slightly in front of the upstage O-Line hangs. This is what often creates the problem with other systems, where you can’t have the speech articulation you want because of the proximity of the mics.
‘Within 12-15ft of the arrays is a lectern and with celebrants on Lavaliers or head mics and they are able to walk in front of the O-Line without any problems with feedback whatsoever. For human articulation, O-Line is always the go-to solution.’
The challenges facing Cannady extended beyond the thickness of the church walls that required the expertise of stonemasons to confidently drill for threaded rod fitting the O-Line wall brackets.
Several 500ft reels of cable were used to discreetly route the cabling, particularly around the pipe organ. ESUMC Audio Steward (and long-time RMB Audio collaborator) Dave Clemmer recalls ‘crawling around pipe organ lofts with hundreds of feet of signal cable – through 27-inch thick walls, concrete and existing empty conduit’. Following which, such, he a new rule of thumb: ‘measure four times, drill once’.
The RMB Audio tech team were already entirely familiar with the space prior to the installation, having previously provided Martin Audio CDD12 or CDD15 for the church’s more progressive worship services, featuring a full band. ‘Now with O-Line they can replicate what we were doing for them earlier,’ Cannady says.
In fact, CDD was initially the preferred solution until RMB Audio’s owner showed photos of other chapels where they had been installed ‘and they thought they looked fantastic’. Provision of a demo pack enabled the neutral light grey to be colour-matched and gain the architects’ approval. Presenting O-Line as ‘the most forgiving cabinet in the Martin Audio series’ proved the icing on the cake.
‘This installation took over a year of gathering acoustic measurement, before settling on O-Line with its audio spectrum quality and artistic design,’ Clemmer says.
Now, the 1,200 congregant that regularly fill the sanctuary on Sundays can enjoy a new experience. Additionally, the choir, who had been experiencing difficulty with the existing foldback, are about to receive a new monitor set-up in the shape of a new CDD5 installation.
Reflecting on an installation, Cannady says that the forgiving nature of O-Line meant virtually no tuning was needed, despite sound swirling round a high elevation ceiling. ‘The room is very settled because with so much stained glass, the ceiling vault starts so high up the wall,’ he says. ‘We were fortunate in that respect, as were that not the case, it could easily have introduced reflections elsewhere.
‘For very cavernous, large volume buildings where you have resonances there is nothing better than O-Line, as it naturally has a presentation that works well.
‘In terms of ROI, it’s pretty amazing that the church already had a sound system that lasted 70 years. I just hope the O-Line achieves the same feat.’
‘To date, this is the most important audio installation project that I have worked on,’ Clemmer adds. ‘It’s an amazing installation with beautiful sonic quality from the Martin Audio O-Line.’
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