Peachtree Blooms With Danley
Mar 1, 2007 8:00 AM
After nearly 30 years in an aging facility, the people of Peachtree City Christian Church were overjoyed to move to their new location in August 2006. With all of the benefits and amenities of new construction, the church seats 500 in a fan-shaped chapel with a soaring, open ceiling and a contemporary feel to match the style of their services. The architecture is solid, beautiful, and functional. And its acoustics were well thought out.
To design and install the sound system, Peachtree City contacted dB Audio and Video, Gainesville, Ga., an installation company with more than 20 years in the business and respect that comes with a heavy portfolio of deeply satisfied customers. Because the acoustics were so well designed, the challenge for Ronnie Stanford, systems advisor for dB Audio and Video, was not to wrestle with standing waves and harsh reflections, as is so often the case. The key challenge with Peachtree City was to meet the modest budget of a church that had just spent a lot of money on their beautiful new building.
Peachtree certainly wasn’t asking for a sound system that would shake the pigeons from their roof, but they had heard enough horror stories from other churches to know that getting clean, intelligible sound would take some forethought.
“Luckily for them, this job was coming to fruition just as the Danley SH-100B was coming into production,” recalls Stanford. “It’s a killer speaker with a nice full frequency response—down to 35Hz owing to an integrated subwoofer—and the same phenomenal pattern control that has made Danley such a name in this profession. Not that Peachtree is going to use it this way every Sunday, but you can push the SH-100B hard (115dB), and it maintains its sonic integrity!”
The Danley SH-100B literally took center stage. Far above the pulpit, Stanford mounted one SH-100B with a Danley TH-115 tapped-horn subwoofer above it for added punch. The black speakers blended seamlessly into their black background on the proscenium. To complete the coverage on each side of the room, Stanford added a Danley SH-100, which has all of the charisma and precision of the SH-100B without the integrated subwoofer.
Although well designed, the church’s tall, flat walls needed a bit of treatment. dB Audio and Video provided acoustic analysis, custom design, and installation of 26 49″x97″ acoustic panels against the back wall. While most of the parishioners probably assume that the panels are simply abstract, beautiful, decorations, they actually keep reflected energy to a minimum so that the direct sound remains crystal clear and true.
Still keeping their client’s budget in mind, dB Audio and Video specified a four-bus, 40-input Allen and Heath GL2400-40 analog console and a 32-bit, three-input, six-output Xilica DCP-3060 digital loudspeaker controller to fuse the system together. To guarantee that the words of Minister George Dillard will be heard by the congregation without glitches or dropouts or other ugliness, Stanford chose the rock-solid Sennheiser EW122G2 wireless system. A full Aviom monitoring system with five personal monitors, coupled with two Yamaha wedges, allow the musicians and vocalists to keep in time in the moderately reverberant church.
In keeping with its contemporary outlook and style, Peachtree opted to include an elegant video system. Since they planned to include it from the start, the architect was able to incorporate two recessed cavities in the front wall for a rear-projection system that required far fewer lumens than a comparable forward-projection system would have needed. A pair of Eiki LC-XG110s project onto two 90″x120″ Da-Lite 76743 screens with Da-Tex fabric.
Stanford specified a video input and control system that would be simple and that wouldn’t compromise the quality of the well-planned projection system. He went with a TV One CSC-1600HD-R video switcher/scaler to ensure that the church could project anything with minimal fuss. An SP Controls Catlinc system converts the analog input at the rear of the room to digital for the long run to the projectors, where it is converted back to analog with no loss of quality. The video system is simple, effective, and easily controlled by IR remote.
With the new audio and video installed and performing flawlessly, the church couldn’t be happier. “They’ll have this system for a long, long time to come,” remarks Stanford. “The sound is solid and perfectly clear. No one misses a word, and every passage of music is conveyed with beauty that befits its higher purpose. Because they planned it out, the video system looks much more expensive than it actually is.”
For more information, visit www.danleysoundlabs.com.
