St Michael's Church brings clarity to Traralgon
St Michael’s Catholic Church in regional city of Traralgon in Australia has been ministering to the city since 1883 and the present church stone building was erected in 1935. As much as the qualities of the building have been more than sufficient for the church’s ministry, the demands of modern music and spoken word ministry meant that the existing audio system was not. A new and more technically developed audio solution was required, and after an extensive appraisal of existing technologies, the Quest HPI system was selected.
St Michaels Traralgon
High ceiling means long reverberation time
The Asymmetrical dispersion properties of the HPI system coupled with versatile installation and array hardware were well suited to the desired coverage area and style of worship at the church. For this installation, the boxes were wall mounted in a two box array using the QR2 pan-tilt rigging kits. Extension plates are available for these kits to extend the reach if the bracket to allow for more tilt when required.
Wall bracket can be extended for more tild or to match an array allignment
Wall bracket QR 2 allows many installation options
Most audio installers would understand the difficulties of achieving uniform and articulate audio coverage in a reverberant environment where lapel microphones will be used in front of the sound system. Also sensitive condenser lectern microphones can be subject to feedback problems when gained to a high level for parishioners unaccustomed to public speaking.
Wide coverage without feedback
Wide room easily covered with a 2 box array
The system also needs to accommodate live music. In this particular installation there is no graphic EQ in the system and the audio is of the “set and forget” variety, yet there is sufficient capability to cater for live music and the accompanying youth music format.
The smooth frequency response coupled with the high power handling of the HPI-110 system delivers a good balance of performance between the competing requirements of the spoken word and live music as far as coverage and intelligibility is concerned, and at the same time is very easy to operate.
The system is powered by a 2,000 watt Quest QA4004 amplifier and the system has a great deal of performance reserve. For this seventy seven year church old building, it is not out of the question it will make its one hundredth birthday with the HPI system still bolted to the wall.
Specified and installed by Earl & Becker Pty. Ltd Traralgon.