Long established in Michigan, the Craig K. Kempf Funeral Home recently expanded to Homer, MI, where it purchased a small funeral home. Kempf immediately brought in contractors to revitalize the existing structure, which itself had originally been a residential house, and ordered an expansion to provide a modestly larger chapel than the existing 30’ x 15’ room. Local AV firm Crookston Audio designed and installed a new sound reinforcement system for the new chapel and for the remodeled rooms. Based on its simplicity of installation, competitive pricing, and intuitive user interfaces, company president John Crookston specified an Ashly Pema 4125.70 integrated processor & four-channel amplifier together with Ashly RD-8C and WR-2 user controls.
Inside the Craig K. Kempf Funeral Home.
- “They originally asked for two zones, one for the new chapel and one for the existing chapel, the lobby, and the fellowship hall combined,” explained Crookston. “They wanted the ability to reinforce a small keyboard, a soloist, audio from DVD or CD, plus, of course, the spoken word from the person officiating the funeral or delivering a eulogy. Those inputs would be reinforced within the new chapel, and they would also be sent to the old chapel and the fellowship hall, which could serve as cry rooms or overflow. We explained that using four zones, one for each room, would give them greater flexibility, with the promise that using the system would be so intuitive that staff would be able to confidently negotiate source selection and volume control with little or no training.”
- A two-rack space, four-channel Ashly Pema 4125.70 resides at the heart of the system and delivers 125 watts to each of the four 70-volt systems. The new chapel, which is still a modest 25’ x 35’, has four mic-level inputs, enough for soloists, vocalists, and spoken word. The audio system also takes input from the room’s CD and video sources. A single Community V2-28 two-way loudspeaker provides coverage in the new chapel, whereas Community D5 ceiling speakers provide coverage in the old chapel, the lobby, and the fellowship hall.
- User control consists of two complementary controls. First, an Ashly RD-8C remote desktop fader bank allows anyone to sit within the new chapel and mix the input sources in real time. A single cable ties the RD-8C to the Pema 4125.70, which allows the operator to sit anywhere in the new chapel and discretely mix. Second, an Ashly WR-2 resides near the equipment rack and allows staff to send audio from the new chapel to any (or none) of the other rooms.
- “As a contractor, I not only have to deliver a great final product, I also have to make money doing it,” Crookston added. “Ashly is a great help with that! Ashly equipment is totally reliable. We’ve been using it for years and never had a problem. Moreover, Ashly’s Protea signal processing software is common to the entire Ashly line. So my staff can learn Protea, which is quite intuitive, and then install any Ashly product in any size system. There’s no learning curve. As a result, all of our installations are predictable and as easy as they can be, which is the way I like it.”
