The 1,200-plus capacity worship sanctuary of St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Shelby Township, MI, which presents a challenging acoustical environment in the form of a rectangular nave with brick-lined walls and high, slanted ceilings that culminate in a glass-encased cupola, has been equipped with a new sound reinforcement system headed by Renkus-Heinz ICLive X Series beamsteering loudspeakers.
Church staff contacted Robert Wisnieski, owner and system designer at RMW Productions, to design the new system, and he recommended the ICLive X Series of steerable arrays to meet the goals of even coverage and higher intelligibility. The series provides customization of room coverage through individually steerable beams.
“The reverberation in St. John Vianney’s nave was pretty significant,” says Wisnieski. “It’s a wide room with high ceilings, so the acoustics were not ideal. After looking at several different loudspeaker series, we felt the ICLive X was the best fit for the sanctuary’s needs.”
RMW Productions installed four ICLX loudspeakers around the sanctuary. Each module includes six 19-mm compression drivers coaxially mounted in front of two 8-in woofers that are arranged to maintain tighter pattern control down to lower frequencies. The form factor of the loudspeakers is alsocompact and discreet, making it well-suited for spaces like St. John Vianney that need to cover 1,200 seats without visually intrusive loudspeakers.
Further, the proprietary Acoustic Source Multiplier (ASM) waveguide of the loudspeakers is designed to minimize acoustic source spacing to help optimize high-frequency steering with no lobe distortions. Additionally, the ASM allows the high-frequency section to be coaxially mounted in front of the low-frequency section, producing a more consistent and symmetrical wave of high and low frequencies along the length of the array.
“ICLive X loudspeakers are great for challenging acoustic environments like St. John Vianney,” Wisnieski concludes. “Renkus-Heinz’s beam steering is a wonderful solution for reverberant spaces.”
