Active Audio system maintains beauty of Jesuit chapel

Having recently moved to La Joilette district, the Jesuit community of Marseille required an audio system for its newly built chapel and adjoining conference room, which sits on the ground floor of its five-storey building, also host to private habitations.

The Jesuits were said to be so impressed by Ecclesia Sound’s recent sound upgrade in their Saint- Ferréol church in Marseille, which includes Active Audio column speakers, that they trusted the system integrator with the new chapel. For this project, Ecclesia Sound fitted the cabling prior to construction, ensuring the chapel’s aesthetic would not be compromised: “I got on the project in October 2020, exactly one year before the delivery of the site,” stated Joachim Fritsch, acoustic engineer and founder of Ecclesia Sound. “I was able to redraw the original wiring plans, which also gave me an opportunity to place all the ducts in the right place.”

Active Audio, a brand of Arbane Groupe, has two of its Ray-On 110 passive column loudspeakers installed in the chapel to deliver the sound throughout the hexagon shaped room, which seats up to 60 people. Due to the speaker’s compact size, the system integrator was able to fit the equipment flush with the back-lit stained glass windows to maintain the integrity and beauty of the space.

“A temporary fabric-ceiling had been fitted awaiting the permanent wooden replacement, so ceiling speakers were not an option,” commented Fritsch. “After speaking with the architect, we agreed that aligning the speakers flush with the windows would work. Importantly, the embedded technology in Ray-On speakers means that there is no need to tilt them, which notably improves sound and aesthetics.”

Alongside Active Audio, the audio system is completed by a Shure Microflex MX412 gooseneck microphone, a Sennheiser MEB 114S-W surface microphone, a Shure SLXD/B58 wireless microphone, a Yamaha MTX3 digital processor, and an Apart PCR3000R media player with infrared remote.

For the chapel’s adjoining conference room, Ecclesia Sound installed Yamaha in-ceiling speakers and a subwoofer, all powered by a single Powersoft Mezzo 604a amplifier.

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