St. Michael and All Angels
Episcopal Church
Dallas, Texas

Seat Count: 500
Project Type: Renovation
Renovation Complete: January 2002
Client: Saint Michael and All Angels
Episcopal Church
A/V Installation: ASC Companies
AD Scope: Acoustics and Audio

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St. Michael and All Angels in Dallas, Texas, wanted what would have been the impossible a few decades ago. They wanted their relatively small, architecturally modern worship center to sound like a cathedral.

Because of the absorptive ceiling and walls, there was relatively little acoustical support for congregational worship, the organ or the choir. To make matters worse, the existing sound system lacked directional realism and produced poor speech intelligibility.

Replacing the ceiling would have provided more of a “live” environment for worship; however, it would have been an extremely costly solution. In addition, creating a more “live” environment would have exacerbated the existing speech intelligibility challenges.

The problems were solved with a combination of acoustical elements and “electronic acoustics.” The absorptive material on the walls was removed, and two speaker systems were installed in the church - one for speech and one for music. The speech reinforcement system consisted of small line array boxes fastened to columns. It was finely tuned so that if the speaker walks away from the mic, he becomes softer but there is no noticeable difference because of feedback. The speaker system installed for music is a LARES system. It consists of overhead, lateral and cove speakers. The subwoofers are located in the coves. This system creates “electronic acoustics” by activating when music is present but controlling the level of excitement during speech.

The symphonic hall sound of St. Michael and All Angels Church is accomplished with the help of 42 LARES 440K loudspeakers, ten QSC CX404 amp units, five two-channel CX502 amps and four two-channel CX1102s.

AD also provided conceptual recommendations for the expansion of the chapel.