For Trinity United Methodist Church in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, sound has always been an issue. The sanctuary's soaring peaked roof and exceptionally live acoustics lends a majestic touch to the choir, bell choir and pipe organ, but rendered the sermons nearly unintelligible. That was the conflict confronting Music Mart's Tom Gallagher.
 
"The room had a three-second reverb time, and the musicians loved what it did for the sound," said Gallagher. "But for the pastor, anyone more than about 20 feet away could barely get a word out of the sermons. We had to find a way to improve the intelligibility factor without resorting to any acoustic treatment that would impact the room's resonance."
 
Gallagher found the solution in Community Professional's new ENTASYS, a compact, high-performance column line array system, www.communitypro.com.

"We looked into using a steerable array, but it wasn't really practical for their budget and was almost a bit of overkill for a 400-seat room," he said.

Using a combination of ENTASYS full-range and low-frequency columns, he was able to provide even coverage across the entire area with minimal impact on the church's budget, or the sanctuary's aesthetics.
 
"The columns are less than six inches wide, and most of the congregation didn't even notice them," said Gallagher. "We mounted one full-range and two low-frequency units on either side of the chancel, and one more full-range unit up high and a bit further back to cover the balcony, and that's all we needed."

Using the ENTASYS pan-tilt and fly kit brackets, the columns are tilted forward and angled slightly inward, providing tight, focused coverage to the seating areas.

"The columns are only about four feet from the lectern, but the pattern control is tight enough that there's virtually no problem with feedback," he said. "And, we had to do almost no equalization – they sounded great right out of the box."
 
Patricia Coldiron, the church's music director, is equally pleased.

"Our old, outdated system was always a challenge to work with," she said. "The new system enhances not only our music program but also the spoken word presentations."

A single Community SLS920 cabinet provides monitoring for the musicians. Crest amplification powers the system, and a single RANE RPM88 unit provides signal processing for the entire system.
 
Gallagher said that, while much of the congregation barely saw the new speakers, virtually everyone heard the difference.

"I had people coming up to me and asking me what had changed," he said. "All of a sudden they could hear the sermon, and they couldn't figure out why until I pointed out the columns."