Upgrade of the St Edmund Campion sound system to provide improved speech intelligibility and support for the electric organ
The customers brief was to:-
Improve the speech intelligibility in the main church and the crèche.
Increase the coverage of the system to include the entrance hall.
Provide realistic sound amplification for the electronic organ and play back of CDs and other media.
Both the above facilities had to be simple for users to use.
To accomplish these goal, a three part system was devised which employed:-
- A column system purely for speech in the main church. This takes advantage of its precise dispersion pattered . This reduces the level of reverberation compared to the result that, a less controlled, point source would provide. To provide a fill to the altar severs on the altar, a pair of small discreet fills were used. These were powered from the same amplifier as the main church column speakers . The fill cabinets are mounted so from the congregations view point they are unnoticeable
- A system using 4 x compact 6″ and tweeter cabinet for the crèche and entrance hall. This part of the system was fed by signals from both the speech mix and the music mix to prevent these areas feeling isolated from the main church, even when the doors are closed. As these two rooms are at the rear of the room and the doors are sometimes open the signal fed to them was delayed so that when you move from one to the other you do not hear any uneasy echoes
- The final part of the system for the music play back uses a pair of 4 × 8″ bass cabinets for frequencies up to 100 Hz and a pair of 10″ and horns to do the 100 Hz and above. The speakers are mounted on the shelf at the rear of the church. The amplification for this part of the system is provided by a combined 3 channel power amp, which has a mono bass amp that produces ample power to give a real feeling of a large pipe organ. The reason for using the 4 × 8″ cabinets was two fold, first the low frequency response was low enough to cope with the 16 foot pipe and secondly the cabinet size was small enough to permit two to be located on the shelf
After the new sound system was installed and set up the results were exceptional. Speech was crisp and clear and the coverage was extremely uniform. With regards to the playback and in particular the organ reproduction , you would have thought you were in a major church , the low frequencies move you and the available undistorted volume has plenty of head room to cope with the most enthusiastic congregation
The equipment used for the upgraded sound system was a combination of new speakers by “Apart“, amplifiers from “EV ” and “IMG” and signal processing from “Seed” , with an existing mixer and amplifier which the church already owned
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