VERO BEACH, FLORIDA: After years of steady increase, Calvary Chapel in Vero Beach, Florida had the welcome problem of outgrowing its 350-seat sanctuary. The church came up with a plan to demolish two older buildings and erect a new 600-seat sanctuary. They relied on member Joey Hale and his integration firm, Propulsion AV, to design and install an intelligible, big-impact, sound reinforcement system for the room. Hale, in turn, relied on Danley Sound Labs’ patented loudspeaker and subwoofer technologies to make good on his responsibility, with big help from Danley’s on-staff engineers for the system design and commissioning.
“Although we don’t run full concert-level SPLs, our services are very contemporary,” explained Hale. “We have a full band with a couple of acoustic guitars, a couple of electric guitars, keyboards, bass, a drum kit, a percussionist and vocalists. Our new sanctuary is approximately ninety feet across and seventy-five feet deep, with a tall, thirty-foot ceiling. It’s a big, industrial-style building, and the architect worked within our budget to make the most of the acoustics. The walls are lined with corrugated metal sheeting, which helps with some things but does make the room a little bright. The floors are concrete, but the padding on the chairs and people help. The ceiling is open, which allows the insulation to help with the sound.”
Hale continued, “I walked into a Danley demo at InfoComm in Orlando a few years ago, and I was blown away! I liked how articulate the Danley boxes were, which is especially important in a church setting where you want spoken and sung vocals to come through clean. The Danley boxes had nice, clean mids that weren’t muddy, nice musical low end, and high end that was perfectly present but not at all piercing. It was an ideal mix of what I’m looking for in a speaker. At one point during our planning meetings there was talk of going with a line array, but I felt that Danley was a better choice. Bencsik Associates [the area Danley rep] came out to our old sanctuary and simply laid a few Danley boxes on the stage so everyone could hear the Danley sound. Later, to really prove the concept, we took a trip up to Calvary Chapel Melbourne where they have Danley rigs throughout their campus. Everyone liked them, and the guys at Melbourne had glowing reviews, which added to our peace of mind.”