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St. Raymond Catholic Church
Brackett, WI
Sound System Installation

This sound system was part of a brand new church project. Three congregations were combined into one new church for a larger and grander facility, including a large 300-seat sanctuary and smaller 100-seat overflow space.

This project was a design-build situation, where we worked with the church, general contractor, and electrical contractor to achieve the best design within the unique space. The sanctuary provided a particular challenge in that the materials and design of the facility gave it a 7 second reverberation time, not the best scenario when trying to understand the spoken word. Bose had recently come out with a small, economical line array that promised to work well in reverberant spaces. After mapping out the speakers and seeing impressive results on the computer, we chose that design. The speakers worked beautifully; they produce clear, intelligible sound throughout the worship space. In addition, they were custom painted to match the stone background.

To the right is a close up view of one of the speakers.

We also installed a Bose subwoofer, which allows the musicians to have a system with full frequency response.

The system also included head-end electronics from Biamp – mixer, processor, amplifier, and remote control. Two Telex wireless microphones and a Marantz CD/tape player completed the system. Staying with Bose speakers, the narthex area has a 402-II mounted on the wall and the cry room has the 32 series ceiling speaker.

We continued the combination of Bose speakers and Biamp electronics in the fellowship hall. Due to the peaked design of the ceiling, we went with surface mount 32 series speakers mounted on the soffit and flush mount 32 series speakers around the edges to cover the room. There is a small mixer/amplifier, one wireless microphone, and a CD player which will provide everything necessary to utilize the room for small meetings and gatherings. In addition, there is a feed from the sanctuary to this room for use as overflow.

A variety of inputs are in a floor box under the pulpit as well as wall mounted in the choir area. We recently added a small submixer and direct boxes for the choir/praise band to better plug into the system. A hearing assistance system is also provided with the system for hearing impaired parishioners.

This church presented a unique challenge, which we enjoyed solving. The church also was a beautiful working environment, especially when we were completing the final tuning with all of the stained glass windows and wooden pews in place. We proudly show off this church as one of our success stories.