The architecture of historic churches and other places of worship are recognised for the acoustic challenges they present – particularly reverberation, which challenges the intelligibility of music and partucularly speech. This was what awaited Piacenza-based IT and system integration company Inside Srl at the Church of Sant’Erasmo in the parish of Castel Goffredo, part of Italian’s Mantua province.
‘The idea of upgrading the sound system in our church was a need felt for many years by all users – from the congregation to the readers, from the choristers to the instrumentalists, as well as the priests themselves,’ church parish priest, Don Giuseppe Bergamaschi, explains. ‘We entrusted the renovation of the acoustic system to Inside Srl, and right from the outset, when the tests and studies of other systems were conducted, we realised the solution we had chosen would provide optimum performance.’
The principal requirement of the project was to completely replace a dated and no longer fit-for-purpose audio system with one capable of guaranteeing intelligible speech, even in the highly reverberant environment of the church. Additionally the client – the Parish of Castel Goffredo – had requested a system that would work for both the church choir and also musical performances from other groups.
The proposal from by Inside Srl Technical Manager Cristian Sartori and his colleague Gianluca Pighi, was for Martin Audio’s O-Line modular micro-array – specifically a two-way system (in white) comprising four elements per side.
A listening test was conducted inside the church, with the parish priest and Inside team verifying the suitability of the system for voice and music, as well as its integration into the surrounding environment. This was followed by an acoustic simulation conducted by product specialists at Audiosales, Martin Audio’s local distribution partner. The resulting deployment included a pair of CDD8W ultra-compact, two-way passive loudspeakers set on two columns towards the altar area, performing fill duties.
The client had also requested that the new sound system bw suitable for the masses and celebrations that are regularly broadcast live via the Castel Goffredo radio station, Radio Alfa. ‘Many people follow both weekday and Sunday Holy Mass via streaming,’ Don Giuseppe Bergamaschi says. ‘We have the church directly connected to Radio Alfa and the audio is excellent as is the video.’
