Established in1986 and expanded in 1997 to include a high school and gym, and then again in 2005 to add an elementary school and daycare facilities, South Haven Baptist Church in Springfield, Tennessee, is the community center for a steadily growing congregation. With that congregation overflowing its sanctuary, the church transferred its services to the high school gym for a number of years, using a Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker system.

The church recently expanded its campus yet again, adding a 1,000-seat sanctuary and recalling Centerline Audio Visual to design and install an sound reinforcement system centred on a stereo pair of Danley J1-94 Jericho Horns – the same boxes that are used in some of the America’s largest sports arenas.

‘South Haven is an independent Baptist church that holds services that are on the traditional end of the spectrum,’ Centerline Audio Visual principal, Scott Oliver, explains. ‘Where other Baptist churches would have a praise band, they have a full orchestra, a choir and a grand piano.

‘The new sanctuary is a big improvement over the gym that they had been using. The room is a rectangle that is wider than it is deep. Of course, there’s always an element of geometrical challenge when you try to put a speaker – which emits sound as a cone – in a rectangular room, but Danley’s pattern control makes it a lot easier.’

Oliver designed the new system using a stereo pair of J1-94 Jericho Horns. Weighing in at 720lb, and with a height of 5ft and a width of nearly 4ft, the J1-94 is substantial, but physicall small for its148dB output. In addition, Oliver repurposed two SH50s from the gym to serve as out fill and two further SH95s to serve as choir monitors. Two SH50s remain in the gym, repositioned to optimise their performance given the loss of the other elements to the new sanctuary. Two Danley DSPs manage the system, which is powered by Crest Pro-Lite amplifiers.

‘We weren’t sure about the size, but the visual impact is minor and much less than it would have been with line arrays,’ says Jason Royalty, Director of Music & Communications at South Haven. ‘We have perfectly consistent sound from wall to wall and from front to back. The frequency range is astounding, and we don’t need subwoofers at all. It’s really like mixing on giant studio reference monitors.’

‘A lot of people think of Jericho Horns as rock and roll boxes, but you should hear them with an orchestra and choir,’ Oliver adds.

Anticipating continued growth, the church included the potential to expand the sanctuary by extending its depth. Even if it does, it will require no change to the sound reinforcement system. ‘They could add two-hundred more feet without changing a thing,’ Oliver says. ‘This Jericho system is definitely the last sound reinforcement system they’ll buy in my lifetime.’