St Bernadette of Lourdes Parish in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, is an Americana-style church built in the post-World War II era, and features vaulted wood ceilings, terrazzo floors, a marble sanctuary, and plaster walls. While beautiful, this creates a variety of acoustic challenges.
‘Because of the structure of the church, there are a number of dead spots and reverberation issues throughout the church,’ says Reverend Christopher R Coffiey. ‘The problem worsened during the summer due to white noise from the HVAC system. We’ve even lost several parishioners over the years because it was difficult to hear in our church.’
His concern was driven by the concern that if someone couldn’t hear, how could they grow spiritually? He approached Ken Longo at Precision Audio in New Jersey to find a solution.
‘When we first met with Father Coffiey and heard just how reflective the space was, we knew it was going to be a challenging project,’ Longo says. ‘Then the HVAC system came on and was louder than the audio system. We didn’t want to compromise the aesthetic of the space by adding treatment, so our solution was to utilize a loudspeaker where we could control the pattern of the audio. No one does pattern control better than Danley Sound Labs.’
Working with Chris Hutnick at Lienau AV Associates, Longo selected the Danley SH96 and SH95 loudspeakers powered by a DNA10K4PRO amplifier. Using two loudspeakers on each side (one for down fill) allowed the team to control the audio in the room to avoid reflective surfaces and create an identical listening experience from front to back. This minimise reflections that compromise speech intelligibility.
‘What’s always surprising to us when using Danley loudspeakers is the extreme sense of closeness you get, even in an extremely deep space like St Bernadette,’ Longo says. ‘Even in the last row of pews, you still feel this strong sense of intimacy and clarity like you’re being drawn into what’s happening in front of you. That’s really hard to do in large, reverberant spaces, but feels effortless with Danley.’
‘Since our new system was installed, every comment has been immensely positive,’ Reverend Coffiey says. ‘Perhaps the best comment was from a lady who had left our parish years ago because she couldn’t hear during Mass. She told me she had seen on Facebook we were installing a new sound system, so she came to visit and said she could now hear better than ever and would definitely come back.’
‘The team at Precision Audio and Lienau AV Associates were an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish,’ he adds. ‘We have had no problems since installation and the quality is amazing. I never realised until I took this role in 2025 how important sound was in a church. Sound quality can impact growth because attendees need to hear the Good News. I can now confidently say that they do here at St Bernadette and that we have the finest sound system of any church in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.’
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