CASE STUDY: HERITAGE CHURCH SOUND SYSTEM

St Lukes Presbyterian parish was formed in 1875 to serve Remuera, Epsom and Newmarket. A wooden church was purchased and moved to the current site in the same year. The present church was built in 1931-32, using the plans of a church built in 1904 in the Scottish village of Twechar, near Glasgow. A complex of halls behind the church has served the parish and the community in a variety of ways for over a hundred years. In 1984, the renovated and refurbished halls were reopened as a community centre. The community centre and church interior were extensively redeveloped in 1998.

As the needs and focus of the church have changed over the years, so have the demands being placed on the audio system. It was decided in July 2014 to upgrade the out-dated sound system with current technology, so the church approached Magness Sound and Jpro to provide a solution. The brief was to provide a high quality system for speech reinforcement and background music, but to remain as discrete as possible so as not to detract from the aesthetics of the building. JBL's CBT-70J column arrays were selected as the main speakers with JBL Control 25AV's as fill and delay to supplement.

Working closely with the Ministry team and the parish committee assigned with the task of delivering a solution to meet the needs of the passionate congregation at this wonderful siteit was decided that the main speakers only should be capable of covering the main body of the church, as adding delay speakers would be unsightly. The CBT-70J column arrays were selected for this task. They have a wide horizontal dispersion and a vertical dispersion that can be tailored to fit multiple applications. The level variation between the front row and rear row of the pews is within 6dB, and coverage across the width of the church is uniform. Another important characteristic of the CBT speaker is that its frequency response doesn't change dramatically over normal operating distances. Combine all of this with its compact size, and it was the ideal speaker for this application.

The system is processed and controlled by a BSS BLU-100 with a BSS BLU-10 remote panel. Crown CDi series and JBL CSA1120 provide the amplification.

A sub floor hearing loop system was installed to cater to those requiring hearing assistance in the congregation