When Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Newport News VA wanted to optimize space in the newly constructed St. Michael Hall and Conference Center, officials turned to The Whitlock Group in Virginia Beach VA for design guidance. “[The church] presented a problem experienced over and over again in the audio/video industry: a long wish list with half a budget,” explained Rodney Coronel, The Whitlock Group account manager. “Ultimately we needed an inexpensive solution that addressed the parish’s needs while conforming to the environment. And conforming to the environment proved to be no easy task: One third of the area contained a carpeted floor and standard drop-tile ceiling, whereas two thirds of the area contained a tiled floor and vaulted ceiling.”

Based on the environment and typical projected use patterns, the parish decided to divide St. Michael Hall into four combinable room groups. The area with the carpeted floors and drop-tile ceilings would be broken into three separate rooms, each about 20’x50’, whereas the remaining area, the 75’x70’ ballroom with tiled floor and vaulted ceiling, would be the fourth room group. All rooms would have floor boxes for local microphone and source inputs.

To complete the task, Coronel suggested an eclectic package of audio/video equipment, including a Crown CTS-8200 eight-channel commercial power amplifier, a Kramer VP-88 8x8 RGBHV/stereo audio matrix router, Christie Vivid projectors, Electro-Voice ceiling speakers, a Marantz CD changer, Shure SM-58 microphones and an Intelix MARC 16x8 audio room-combining matrix mixer with mic/line pre-amplification card. The Intelix MARC would be the heart of the parish’s AV room-combine environment.

Hart Smith, the parish director of facilities, controls all of the room combining and audio/video functions. “The system is user friendly and has been very successful,” he offered.

Sound & Communications Magazines, January Issue, 2004