A recent renovation at Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church in Naples, FL includes a substantial upgrade of the sanctuary sound reinforcement system with Lectrosonics Aspen Series signal processing at the heart.
Chicago-based Kirkegaard Associates (“KA”) was contracted to evaluate and provide recommendations for AV and acoustic improvement at the church.
Jonathan Darling, senior consultant at KA, served as both the AV system designer and project manager, working closely with John Fenstermaker, director of music at the church. Chris Burney of Naples, FL-based Scientific Sound handled the installation.
“Trinity-by-the-Cove is an absolutely beautiful structure,” Darling reports. “The church is subtly cruciform in design with small transepts on either side of the nave seating. The church includes a wonderful organ and services feature a fine small choir. We chose the Aspen SPN1612 processor because of Lectrosonics’ reputation for superior sound quality, its ability to handle all system connections in one DSP unit, its input capability, and because of its ability to be controlled via an Apple iPad.
Scientific Sound’s Burney adds, “The Lectrosonics Aspen was our first choice because of dependability. Scientific Sound Systems has been using Lectrosonics for many years and they are always our go-to processing system for automatic mixers. The open-ended architecture, processing, and audio quality the unit provides is wonderful.
“We had used the Aspen processors in previous installs,” he continues, “controlling them with IR/serial touch panels in much of the same way as we did at Trinity-by-the- Cove. When it came time for the Trinity-by-the-Cove project, we were delighted that Lectrosonics had developed the ability to use iPads as controllers.”
The ability to provide direct iPad control of the processor was a feature that was of particular importance. “This feature enabled us to remove a third-party control system with a significant reduction of project cost for control equipment and programming,” Darling says. “There are actually two iPad controllers in the system, one portable and one wall-mounted in the sacristy. This dual-control feature was actually custom programmed by Lectrosonics, which they were very helpful in providing.”
The Lectrosonics Aspen SPN1612 audio processor offers 16 inputs and 12 outputs in a 2RU form factor. With low noise input preamps, a full crosspoint matrix with 48 outputs, TCP/IP Ethernet addressability, and low latency among its many attributes.
Darling reports the new sound system has been well received. “Everyone was extremely pleased with the functionality, convenience, and sound quality of the Aspen processor,” he said. “The speech intelligibility in the church was significantly enhanced by a competitively priced renovation that was aided by the quality and cost savings provided by the Aspen processor using the iPad control option. The new system has been a win-win for all involved.”
