WILMINGTON, DE — St. Mark’s Lutheran Church got its start with Lutheran neighbors meeting in a fire hall in 1942. Then, after establishing a physical church of its own, a fire swept through the sanctuary and destroyed most of the worship area some 30 years ago.
With a congregation of about 500, the rebuilding process took time and, only recently, the church has been equipped with a modern sound system to support its two services — one traditional and one contemporary — every Sunday.
Tony Albano of Avondale, PA-based Naamans Creek Audio/Video, used and Entasys system from Community Professional to address the challenges presented by the rebuilt church’s interior, and by the need to support both kinds of services.
“It’s not a particularly large room, but it’s got a very high peaked ceiling, so there’s a fair amount of reflectivity, which has created some intelligibility issues,” Albano said. “Since they also offer a contemporary service with live musicians, we had a bit of a challenge with loudspeaker placement. If we located the loudspeakers behind the altar, they would then be behind the musicians as well – a major feedback risk.”
Albano found the Entasys full-range column line arrays, which are powered by Crown CTS4200 amplifiers, provided coverage that was consistent and focused, enabling him to position the loudspeakers far closer to the congregation than would be possible for most other systems.
“We ended up mounting the Entasys columns pretty much right at the front of the pews,” he said. “In fact, when you see where they’re mounted, your first impression is that there’s no way it can work, that it’s going to blow away the person sitting right in front of it. The pastor came in and looked at it and said ‘No way, everyone’s going to be sitting in the back.’ But the fact is, the Entasys system is so precise in its ability to control the waveform that we were able to create a pattern that projected great coverage to the back of the room while delivering manageable volume to the front pews.”
“They are extremely happy with the system,” Albano concluded. “It’s helped immensely with spoken word intelligibility for the sermons, and has done wonders for the music as well.”
For more information, please visit www.communitypro.com.
