JBL technology solves the audio problems of the Barbastro worship building

An Intellivox DS380 column has been the solution chosen to respond to the problems presented by the church of San Francisco de Asís in Barbastro, a cult venue with complex architectural and acoustic characteristics.

The parish church of San Francisco de Asís in Barbastro (Huesca) installed a new sound system, specifically designed for a building of its characteristics. It is a temple of about 40 meters long, with ribbed vaulted ceilings of about 15 meters high, marble floors and, practically, does not have furniture, which makes the reverberation inside it very high.

This is a space in which the intelligibility of the word has been strongly compromised over the years.. “The church had a distributed sound system made up of 10 100V inline acoustic columns, that only provided acceptable intelligibility in the areas in front of them” comments Juan Viader, scale director, company responsible for the church sound project.

With the aim of improving and homogenizing the levels of intelligibility throughout the entire surface of the temple, The old sound system was replaced with a new one. Scale and Earpro studied the space and designed a new solution consisting of an Intellivox DS380 loudspeaker from JBL Professional, which has been installed in one of the lateral ends of the apse.

With his 20 speakers 4 custom designed inches and its internal class D amplifier of 16 canales, The Intellivox DS380 box provides consistent, clear sound up to a distance 45 metros.

“The installation work has been very simple, Well, when replacing the 10 pre-existing columns by a single, All that was needed was a channel led to the JBL Intellivox DS380, through which we have carried the power and signal cables. The result has been perfect sound pressure uniformity. The new system provides intelligible and powerful sound. Besides, the visual impact of the new installation is minimal, since the column goes practically unnoticed”, explains Juan Viader.

El sistema de sonido también incorpora una solución de microfonía de Shure compuesta por 3 micrófonos de cuello de cisne Centraverse CVG12RS-B/C (located in the ambo, the altar and the seat) and a BLX24RE/SM58 wireless system.

The mixing of these signals is carried out automatically using a Shure SCM820 mixer whose output, along with those of musical sources, in turn enters a BSS BLU50 processor.

This processor has been programmed with 3 different presets to optimize the sound according to different levels of public attendance at religious services and that the priest can select them using a BSS BLU-3 panel. The output of the BSS BLU50 is what powers the JBL Intellivox DS380 self-powered column, protagonist of this installation.