Hasley Chapel, a new worship space nestled in the northwest corner of St. Andrew Methodist Church’s campus in Plano, Texas, was built with both visual and aural aesthetics in mind. Designed by Dallas-based architectural firm GFF, with audio system specification and installation provided by local integrator Clear ProAV, the picturesque chapel overlooks a pond and wooded area and now routinely hosts a mix of traditional worship services, weddings, memorials, small conferences, and other events.
According to St. Andrew Audio Manager Ryan Mansfield, the choice of loudspeaker brand for the new space was practically settled from the start. “We have Kara arrays installed in our main church sanctuary, and I really love their sound, so it made sense to turn to L-Acoustics again for our new chapel’s system,” he says.
Small Space with Big Challenges
Compared to the church’s primary worship hall, which hosts both contemporary and traditional music services, Hasley Chapel is more intimate, seating 120 people on the main floor and features a balcony that can accommodate a modest choir or audience overflow. But despite its diminutive size, the space presented some sizable challenges, says Clear ProAV Systems Designer Chad Fuller.
“The look and feel of the chapel is beautiful, but there are a lot of reflective surfaces,” Fuller observes. The area behind the stage is all glass, while the stone side walls have windows and the building has a high-pitched roof. “It’s a traditional design, but with a modern take, and the aesthetics are huge. So everything we did, especially with the audio portion, had to fit into that. We really had to think about the system design from an ideal performance and coverage perspective, but in a way that would not detract from the beauty of the room.”
Standing Out By Blending In
The L-Acoustics Syva loudspeakers are RAL color-matched to visually blend in with the chapel’s gray stone side walls
Hasley Chapel’s solution came in the form of two colinear L-Acoustics Syva enclosures as the main left and right components of the PA. The Syva are RAL color-matched to visually melt in with the gray stone interior side walls where they are mounted, helping obscure the overt presence of audio technology in the room.
Mansfield notes that he appreciates how the loudspeakers don’t stand out. “We also have two discreet Syva in our main building that we use for a side front-fill area, to bring the image down in our sanctuary,” says Mansfield. “And two of them were perfect for Hasley Chapel as well. They’re very visually unobtrusive and offer great coverage for that space.”
Subs and Coaxials: the Rest of the Team
Complementing Hasley’s Syva enclosures, six ultra-compact X4i coaxial enclosures are used for front-fills, installed within the second step of the stage at the front of the room. Clear ProAV coordinated with GFF to get the architectural clearance to insert the speakers behind custom screens. For low-end reinforcement, a pair of L-Acoustics Syva Sub and Syva Low enclosures on each side of the stage round out the frequency spectrum. These were chosen for their ability to deliver a solid low-end presence from a low-profile cabinet. Furthermore, two L-Acoustics X8 are surreptitiously mounted to a ceiling beam in the balcony, up with the lighting fixtures, providing coverage for that area when it seats a choir or churchgoers.
Focusing with Soundvision
Two Syva sonically blanket the 120 seats on the main floor with precision coverage and natural sound, while two X8 address the balcony area
With so much glass and stone throughout the venue, sound reflections were obviously an initial concern, but the L-Acoustics systems offered Fuller and his team control in terms of speaker placement, dispersion, and tuning. With no sound dampening treatments done to the room, Clear ProAV needed to be very specific about system deployment, and L-Acoustics Soundvision design software offered both the contractor and client a high level of confidence in the final design prior to the construction and system integration taking place.
“We were able to work with the architect during the chapel’s early planning stages to mitigate some potential issues,” says Fuller. “For example, we were able to request that the glass in the balcony be angled just a touch to avoid bad reflections bouncing back toward the stage. Soundvision was instrumental in helping us determine where we could position our loudspeakers so they’d be visually inconspicuous, but still provide the coverage we needed.”
Syva Becomes New Favorite
This project marked the first time that Clear ProAV had worked with the L-Acoustics S Series, and the team was more than satisfied with the results. “Every project we do with L-Acoustics products just impresses us more,” Fuller declares. “Of course, we have our favorite models that we regularly install, including the A Series A15 and A10, and I know exactly what I’m going to get when I use those. But with Syva, Syva Low, and Syva Sub we got to work with a product range that we hadn’t used yet, and we were totally blown away by its output. At Hasley Chapel, everything is driven by a single LA7.16i amplified controller, which gave us all the amp channels and headroom we needed. That combined with Syva makes a fantastic system, for sure.”
“The chapel has pretty decent acoustics, and can be used without reinforcement, but the Syva system adds a nice extra bit of clarity and presence, helping everything feel even more natural,” explains Mansfield. “It can be used quite sparingly to make the room sound nicer, but it’s also great when we push it as well. Everything is easy to use and sounds beautiful. Clear ProAV did a great job for us in there, and L-Acoustics clearly makes a superior speaker.”
For more details on Hasley Chapel, visit www.standrewmethodist.org/give/hasley-chapel. Clear ProAV can be found online at www.clearproav.com.
Please visit L-Acoustics at www.l-acoustics.com.
