Dominated by 125-foot tall spires flanking the main facade, St. James Basilica in Jamestown, ND is designed in the Gothic Revival style and and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it now has a new sound reinforcement system utilizing Renkus-Heinz ICONYX digitally steerable loudspeakers.
The basilica’s 42-foot high ceilings and reverberant acoustics required a targeted audio design to achieve the desired level of speech intelligibility, provided by Dallas Anderson, system designer at Tricorne Audio. Architectural modifications to the church were limited or not permitted due to its historic designation, which greatly reduced the options for the replacement audio system.
“St. James Basilica has amazing architecture but problematic acoustics as a result,” says Anderson. “We calculated nearly four seconds of reverberation in the sanctuary, which is immense. Our only options were to either install acoustical treatments and replace the loudspeaker cluster, or install steerable arrays. Acoustic treatments weren’t allowed under the historic designation, so when steerable arrays became the only viable path forward, we immediately turned to ICONYX loudspeakers from Renkus-Heinz.”
Specifically, a pair of ICONYX IC16-RN steerable arrays are installed in the nave while four CX-62 point source loudspeakers are deployed as fills in the balcony. Beam steering allows ICONYX loudspeakers to better control output and direct it at the audience while helping to keep it away from other surfaces, enhancing intelligibility. In addition, fewer loudspeakers equates to fewer architectural intrusions, which was also of importance to the historic basilica.
Anderson reports that church leadership and congregation are pleased with the audio improvements, adding, “Renkus-Heinz reviewed our acoustical modeling prior to installation to ensure we had designed a robust audio solution. I’ve always been happy with their products’ performance and commitment to customer service.”
