The restoration of St. Nicholas Church in Stara Ľubovňa is a prime example that Bose Professional products meet the highest standards and are destined to provide top quality sound even in the most acoustically demanding spaces.

The installation of sound systems in sacral buildings poses very specific and difficult challenges. Often the interior is large, articulated, with an asymmetrical floor plan and it is constructed of hard materials which have a high ability to reflect sound. Reverberation time and speech intelligibility thus become key parameters for a successful sound system performance. The design process of an optimal sound system requires consideration of acoustic conditions, which are directly influencing the selection of suitable products. For projects like this, it is important that the sound system technologies are taken into account at the beginning of the reconstruction planning stage. Based on this approach, it is possible to achieve an efficient technical design that is consistent with the aesthetics of the building and performs its function to a high standard.
The Church of St. Nicholas in Stará Ľubovňa is a national cultural monument and its history dates back to the 13th century. Between 2018 and 2022, it underwent a complete in-depth restoration of the exterior, interior, furnishings, as well as technical equipment. From a qualitative point of view, it was required that the highest quality and state-of-the-art procedures and technologies will be used. These demands also led to the choice of a sound system from Bose Professional, as the brand's products have been used many times as the main sound system for major sacral buildings worldwide.

The restoration of the church was carried out under the guidance of the architect Tomáš Bujna from the architectural office - architekti NZW s.r.o. For the implementation of the sound system in the Church of St. Nicholas we cooperated with our reliable partner, the integrator company Rytmus – Computer & Music World s.r.o. from Kežmarok, which has many years of experience with installations of this kind.

LOUDSPEAKERS

In order to achieve good speech intelligibility, 5 Bose Professional Panaray MA12 modular column loudspeakers were used. They cover the pew space in the nave of the church. The reason for using these speakers is their directional and frequency characteristics. The speakers have angles of coverage adapted to minimize the consequences of unwanted reflections in acoustically demanding spaces, while at the same time ensuring the best possible level of intelligibility of the reproduced speech. The vertical angle with a value of only 20° significantly eliminates unwanted reflections from the floor and ceiling. The horizontal angle of 145° ensures sufficiently wide coverage of the auditorium. The loudspeakers are tuned so that within the frequency spectrum they mainly cover the area of ​​the middle and high frequency bands. Their limitation in the low frequency band also contributes to improved intelligibility of the reproduced sound. Some of the speakers are installed on the walls using special tiltable brackets. The rest of the speakers were mounted on custom-made stands. With their unobtrusive design, they do not disturb the resulting aesthetics of the interior, which is highly desirable in every sacral or historical building.

Articulated arrangement of the interior and the need to extend the sound system to the exterior of the church required the use of additional loudspeakers. Bose Professional FreeSpace FS2SE and DesignMax DM3SE surface mounted speakers were used for these purposes. The individual speakers are placed as follows:

Bose Professional FreeSpace FS2SE

• 1pc monitor for the priest (interior)
• 1pc in the sacristy (interior)
• 2pcs monitor for the choir (interior)
• 1pc above the sacristy (interior)
• 1pc in front of the sacristy (exterior)

Bose Professional DesignMax DM3SE

• 1pc main entrance (exterior)
• 1pc side entrance (exterior)
• 2pcs back of the main nave (interior)
• 2pcs choir (interior)

Based on this selection the sound performance and appearance of the speakers in the interior and exterior is uniform. Both models have protection against weather conditions (IP55).

PROCESSOR, AMPLIFIER AND DANTE ENDPOINT

System control is provided by the Bose Professional ControlSpace ESP-880AD processor with an open architecture, and the loudspeakers are powered by the Bose Professional PowerMatch PM8250N amplifier. The processor provides comprehensive management of the entire sound system and also has Dante® connectivity. Dante® technology was used to connect the Bose Professional ControlSpace EX-4ML endpoint, which enabled the system to be expanded by 4 additional balanced mic/line inputs. All microphones and the output signal from the computer are connected to the inputs on the processor or the Dante® endpoint. The open architecture of the processor enables flexible programming and signal routing according to the needs of the project. Frequency correction presets were chosen for each type of the loudspeakers so that their performance is optimal.

The custom-made Bose Professional sound system ideally fulfills the high demands placed on the in-depth restoration of the church of St. Nicholas in Stará Ľubovna. This is confirmed by the high satisfaction of the investor and regular participants of the ceremonies.

Bose Professional products used in the project:

1pc Bose Professional ControlSpace ESP-880AD

1pc Bose Professional PowerMatch PM8250N

1pc Bose Professional ControlSpace EX-4ML

5pcs Bose Professional Panaray MA12

6pcs Bose Professional DesignMax DM3SE

6pcs Bose Professional FreeSpace FS2SE