The new sanctuary at the Spring Meadows Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sanford, Florida, came with the sonic challenge of keeping the reflective surfaces in the fan-shaped 1,000-seat hall, with its hardwood panels and stone walls, from overwhelming the intelligibility of the message from the 72-foot-wide raised platform at the church’s front. The solution was a RoomMatch® loudspeaker system from Bose® Professional, in conjunction with some adroit application of acoustical treatments.

Sound Stage, Inc., an AV systems integrator in nearby Winter Park, designed and installed the space, placing two left-right arrays consisting of two RM12020 modules, an RM9020 module and an RM9050 module each, plus two stacked pairs of RMS215 subwoofers, along with 1.5-inch fiberglass acoustical absorptive panels on the rear and side walls of the sanctuary. The room’s front-of-house mixing position created another challenge, as it is located on the second floor and outside the main audio coverage area. To address that, Sound Stage used a Bose RMU208 small-format utility loudspeaker calibrated to the main sound system’s levels in the sanctuary’s first-floor seating area. The system is powered by a Bose PowerMatch® PM8500N networked amplifier and controlled using Bose ControlSpace® DSP.

Bose Modeler® and Auditioner® software were used by Bill Fletcher, Co-Owner of Sound Stage, to establish the sanctuary’s exact parameters. Fletcher then designed the system and the acoustical treatment within it, choosing the exact RoomMatch components needed to address the room’s acoustical specifics.

“A great thing about the RoomMatch product is that you can choose precisely the vertical and horizontal coverage pattern control that you need by choosing the appropriate module,” he explains. “The audio coverage pattern is well-defined from the front to rear and from side to side in the seating area. Coverage just outside the seating drops off dramatically, to minimize sound reflections off of rear and side walls. The subwoofer dispersion pattern provides bass rejection on the platform; the two loudspeaker arrays’ crossover point, at 50 Hz, blended well with the center subwoofer system that was crossed over at 80 Hz.”

The new church building, which opened in May of this year, now has superb sound with an extremely high degree of intelligibility. Associate Pastor Robert Boggess comments, “From the beginning, our building committee knew that our new worship center, with its multiple windows, massive curved rear wall, and balcony sound room, would present some challenges. Bill Fletcher considered several alternatives with our committee and decided upon the Bose system to meet our special needs. After installation this system exceeded our expectations, with even, crisp coverage and great sound quality.” He added that the church is “confident that this sound system will handle all types of programming, as we plan to offer community concerts, live broadcast and evangelistic special events.”

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