A Renkus-Heinz audio system sits front and centre at the historic St. Francis church, an icon of heritage at the seafront city of Pula, Croatia.
The church and monastery of St. Francis has served as a centre of worship and gatherings for centuries, requiring a transformative journey to improve its acoustics and sound clarity for modern audiences.
Working with Renkus-Heinz Croatian distributor, LAV Projekt, Renkus-Heinz’s Iconyx Compact and UBX series were used to strengthen the 14th century house of worship, delivering an audio system that could meet the clarity and coverage needed for both worship services and events.
The open and reverberant natural of the spaces within the church presented acoustic challenges, with medieval stone walls and high ceilings that could cause sound reflections and echoes degrade speech intelligibility and audio clarity. Consistent sound coverage was needed without disrupting the historic architecture or without creating excessive reverberation.
Renkus-Heinz Iconyx Compact ICC36/3 active digital beam-steerable loudspeakers were selected for the church’s nave and sanctuary areas, providing sound coverage in a form factor that blends in with the church’s historic interiors.
Each loudspeaker uses Renkus-Heinz’s beam-steering technology to direct sound where it’s needed, minimising reflections on the church’s surfaces. An integrated 36-channel amplifier enables refined control over the sound field, allowing spoken word during a service or event to reach listeners with clarity.
Two Renkus-Heinz UBX4 passive directional column loudspeakers were specified for the sanctuary and apse areas, mounted discreetly behind the ICC36/3 speakers to provide additional sound coverage to the altar.
An additional UBX8 passive directional loudspeaker was installed in the atrium to extend audio coverage to the monastery courtyard.
Post-installation, the system was calibrated to optimise the performance of the Iconyx Compact using OmniBeam software.