The Prayer Palace, located in Toronto, Ontario, is one of the largest houses of worship in North America. It received an audio facelift with a new left-center-right concert-level system in its worship sanctuary.

The octagonal-shaped sanctuary, with seating for more than 4,500, hosts two regularly scheduled and Sunday masses and a variety of other secular and ethnic events. The new system project focused on upgrading main loudspeaker selection and placement, an issue that had proven problematic over the past couple of years.

Sound Plus Show Systems of Concord, Ontario, provided the design, installation and equipment for the retrofit, working closely with Prayer Palace Pastor Tom Melnichuk and church technical staff. “The existing system was beautifully installed,” explains Chris Mathany, technical director of Sound Plus. “The problem seemed to be with poor design, with many clusters of traditional trapezoidal cabinets. The addition of clusters was only serving to muddy the direct sound in certain areas and creating hot spots in others. My assessment was that dropping and re-hanging the entire system would be less expensive - but far less effective - than bringing in a line array system that would actually fix the problem.”

Off multiple systems offered, the primary option was replacing the existing clusters with a front left-right configuration of Adamson Y-Axis Y-10 small-format line arrays, supported by a small center line array made up of Adamson’s SpekTrix line.
Melnichuk initially expressed a bit of skepticism, with the design called for just 20 compact loudpseaker elements divided among the three arrays.“ I said it wasn’t possible,” he notes. “We had a much larger number of speakers, and from a well-known, high-end brand, installed in several clusters throughout the sanctuary.” However, a full demo system brought in to change minds met its intended purpose. Help in determining array composition, placement and angles was supplied by Adamson Shooter software, a predictive program.

The main left-right arrays are each comprised of eight Y-10 elements, spaced roughly 150 feet apart, and tilted slightly inward to account for the room’s octagonal shape. Due to the large distance between the main arrays, necessary in part to maintain clear line of sight with the front platform, the four SpekTrix cabinets are arrayed “dead center” and tilted downward at an extreme angle, where they cover the slight “hole” in the front/center of the audience area.

“People that continually complained about our former system are now congratulating us,” concludes Melnichuk.

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