An architectural landmark of the southern Brazilian province of Paraná, the Central Adventist Church of Curitiba has completed a remodeling project to give it a larger, more modern design. The project also required AMI International and Carvie Music to overcome a series of challenges…

Now with seating for 2,200 people, the expansive sanctuary includes a ground floor and three mezzanine levels overlooking an open altar area, backed by a four-storey glass wall. Live instrumental and choral performances are a regular part of church services, and videos are often shown on a large projection screen.

‘The glass back wall creates immense reverberation, and to maintain the altar’s aesthetics we weren’t able to use the wall for mount support,’ says Diego Brito of distributor, AMI International. ‘Nothing can obstruct the view of the altar from any seat in the church.’

Originally Carvie Music had planned to install a traditional line array sound system, but soon realised it would require a substantial financial investment in acoustic treatment to achieve desired sound quality. The line array would have also left holes in sound coverage throughout the large sanctuary. After extensive product research, Carvie decided to use entirely new audio technology for Brazil – an Iconyx IC-R Digitally Steerable Array System by Renkus-Heinz. AMI International is the first Brazilian audio distributor to offer the technology.

‘The Iconyx digitally steerable array technology significantly reduced the need for acoustic treatment, and it gives them great musicality with improved voice intelligibility,’ reports Brito.

Carvie installed two Iconyx sub-woofers inside a wall recess to obtain a true flush-mount and maintain the altar aesthetics. Two IC16-R loudspeakers are permanently attached to custom-designed mounts built directly into the altar. For digital signal processing the church is using Rhaon (Renkus-Heinz Audio Operation Networking) DSP firmware to control the Iconyx system. Most of the equalisation is handled via a Yamaha digital mixer.

‘The IC-R system was a great solution for the church because of its digital control capability,’ Brito reports. ‘The beam steering is ideal for keeping sound off the walls.’

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