AUSTIN, TX – Ken Dickensheets of Dickensheets Design Associates knew the Tannoy QFlex 24s he demoed at Saint Mary Cathedral were a hit when the church "wouldn't give them back." Along with sound quality, the QFlex 24s met the need to "blend into the church," which has been designated a cathedral and regional hub since the Diocese of Austin was established in 1948.
The cathedral features a two-story space with a seating capacity of 400 and artistic details throughout, including such distinctively Texan ornamental designs as cacti and bluebonnets in the baldacchino. But like many Catholic churches, Saint Mary Cathedral has no acoustic treatments to speak of and the interior is highly reverberant, with an RT in excess of four seconds.
"It has vaulted ceilings that are 40 to 50 feet high, stucco walls, beautiful stained glass and natural wood," noted Tracy Frederick, technician and project manager for Austin Audio and Video, the installers on the project. Despite all that, the new gear helps the cathedral stay "very intelligible, no problems at all."
Dickensheets noted that, along with "higher speech intelligibility and a more natural sound than the more expensive arrays they replaced," the speakers met the three criteria that he looks for in equipment – "easy to set up, remains stable and has very high quality sound."
For the Saint Mary upgrade, Dickensheets added, "all we did was replace the arrays." The existing gear – an Ivie 884 Auto-mixer, Shure P-4800 DSP, Audio Technica wireless microphones and QSC CX Series amplifiers to drive the cathedral's existing subs and a number of 70 volt loudspeakers previously installed – did not need to be replaced.
"There's no console," Dickensheets noted. "Speech is done using the automated mixer alone, and when they need music, they have a small remote controller that plugs in and turns that into a manual mixer." In all, there are eight mic inputs, including four channels of wireless for use when necessary. Choir reinforcement, when needed, is handled with a separate system from the rear loft to maintain source illusion.
The two QFlex 24s are placed to the left and right of the chancel, facing the front of the sanctuary straight on and mounted approximately eight feet off the floor. Dickensheets used QFlex's BeamEngine GUI to keep the sound off of the rear wall, while still providing ample coverage for the main sanctuary and choir loft.
The most difficult portion of the install, from Frederick's perspective, was installing the brackets for the arrays – but that was due to the nature of the walls themselves. "They're stucco, but with natural limestone behind them, and they're over 120 years old. But once the brackets were installed, the speakers went up easily."
Cristina Gonzalez, Saint Mary Cathedral's director of stewardship and development, spoke of the difference in the cathedral's sound quality from what it has once been. "Now you can sit anywhere and hear everything very clearly – there's not a bad seat in the house."
And unlike the previous line arrays, installed in 2004, which had become unreliable enough to prompt their replacement, Dickensheets noted, "they've had zero issues since the QFlex went in."
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