Saint Barnabas Catholic Church is a vital social anchor and community-builder in an economically-challenged section of Birmingham, Alabama. Its beautiful sanctuary was constructed in the early 1950s, and, although the room itself is still in excellent shape, the sound reinforcement system that went in fifty years ago was not. The room can accommodate 300 people, but congregants routinely avoided all of the middle pews because it was impossible to understand what was being said, and intelligibility toward the front and back was still challenging at best. Local AV integration firm ENG AV designed and installed a simple but remarkably effective Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker system comprised of two Danley SM100 loudspeakers and four small Danley Nano loudspeakers for choir and stage monitors.
“Many of our parishioners are older, and hearing can be a challenge for them even under the best of circumstances,” explained Father Douglas Vu, who, in addition to leading Saint Barnabas, volunteers his time as a sports commentator. Father Vu’s boundless energy and enthusiasm have made him a local celebrity in the Birmingham area. He continued, “Our parish is located in a poorer neighborhood of Birmingham, and money is always an issue. That’s why I was happy to work with Gary [Boackle] at ENG AV. I trusted that he would deliver a custom-built system that would solve our intelligibility problems for the most affordable price.”