St. Bernadette of Lourdes Parish in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania is simply gorgeous. Built in the post-World War II era, the Americana-style church features vaulted wood ceilings, terrazzo floors, a marble sanctuary, and plaster walls. While beautiful, the sanctuary creates a variety of acoustic challenges.
“Because of the structure of the church, there are a number of dead spots and reverberation issues throughout the church,” said Reverend Christopher R. Coffiey. “The problem worsened during the summer due to white noise from the HVAC system. We’ve even lost several parishioners over the years because it was difficult to hear in our church.”
Coffiey’s concern was driven by one question: if someone couldn’t hear, how can they grow spiritually. To alleviate the problem, Coffiey reached out to Ken Longo at Precision Audio in New Jersey for a solution.
“When we first met with Father Coffiey and heard just how reflective the space was, we knew it was going to be a challenging project. Then the HVAC system came on and was louder than the audio system,” said Longo. “We didn’t want to compromise the aesthetic of the space by adding treatment, so our solution was to utilize a loudspeaker where we could control the pattern of the audio. No one does pattern control better than Danley Sound Labs.”
Working with Chris Hutnick at Lienau AV Associates, Longo selected the Danley SH96 and SH95 loudspeakers powered by Danley’s DNA10K4PRO amplifier. Utilizing two loudspeakers on each side (one as a downfill) allowed the team to control the audio in the room to avoid reflective surfaces and create an identical listening experience from front to back. This strategy minimized reflected audio energy and ensured high speech intelligibility at every seat.
“What’s always surprising to us when using Danley loudspeakers is the extreme sense of closeness you get, even in an extremely deep space like St. Bernadette,” said Longo. “Even in the last row of pews, you still feel this strong sense of intimacy and clarity like you’re being drawn into what’s happening in front of you. That’s really hard to do in large, reverberant spaces, but feels effortless with Danley.”
Reverend Coffiey spoke highly of the new system.
Coffiey said, “since our new system was installed, every comment has been immensely positive. Perhaps the best comment was from a lady who had left our parish years ago because she couldn’t hear during Mass. She told me she had seen on Facebook we were installing a new sound system, so she came to visit again for Christmas Mass. She raved about the new system and even said she could now hear better than ever and would definitely come back.”
Audio quality wasn’t the only positive part of Coffiey’s experience.
“The team at Precision Audio and Lienau AV Associates were an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish,” said Coffiey. “We have had no problems since installation and the quality is amazing. I never realized until I took this role in 2025 how important sound was in a church. Sound quality can impact growth because attendees need to hear the Good News. I can now confidently say that they do here at St. Bernadette and that we have the finest sound system of any church in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.”
ABOUT DANLEY SOUND LABS
Danley Sound Labs is a visionary in the audio industry providing powerful loudspeakers, subwoofers and other innovations to performances and venues around the world. Led by co-founders Tom Danley and Mike Hedden, Danley built its reputation on designing the most technologically innovative audio products on the market today. From stadiums to houses of worship, theme parks to studios and live sound, Danley products generate crystal clear sound that can serve audiences of any size. Learn More at https://www.danleysoundlabs.com
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