Founded in 1850 by German immigrants, St. Joseph Fullerton, a Roman Catholic church located just north of Baltimore in Perry Hall, MD, was recently outfitted with a new sound reinforcement system headed by Community Professional ENTASYS column line arrays.
St. Joseph’s current building, an octagonal structure with around-the-sanctuary seating, and imaginative décor has impressed parishioners and visitors for more than 40 years. The original sound system used ceiling loudspeakers to cover the sanctuary and had been augmented with loudspeakers in the organ chamber. However, coverage was uneven in many locations and very poor in the back of the church.
Through a referral from another church, St. Joseph’s contacted Mike Flaherty of Nelson White Systems in Baltimore, who recommended a system based on ENTASYS to provide smooth coverage throughout the sanctuary and project sound evenly all the way to the rear while minimizing unwanted reflections from the ceiling and floor.
Flaherty chose to implement left and right double-stacked ENTASYS to cover the central areas of the sanctuary supplemented by a pair of single ENTASYS to cover the far left and right. Two Community VLF212 subwoofers supplement the system’s low-frequency performance for the church’s weekly contemporary mass, with a Community dSPEC networked loudspeaker processor providing system equalization.
The loudspeakers are driven by Crown amplifiers, with a Shure automatic mixer offering hands-off system operation for most services. For the weekly contemporary mass, Flaherty provided a special dSPEC input with a compressor section to manage the level. Musical groups can connect their own mixers to this input.
At the church’s request, Community custom-painted the ENTASYS columns to a color chosen to complement the carpet and trim, and Flaherty says the church is very pleased with the results.
“They’ve gotten nothing but complements about the appearance and the sound,” he says. “Those people who were sitting in the dead spots from the old system can finally hear everything.
“The spoken word clarity is excellent,” he adds, “and the subs add a pleasing low-frequency warmth to the contemporary service.”
