Audio system overhaul at St Mary’s Collegiate

SFL have recently completed an overhaul of the audio system at St Mary’s Collegiate St Mary’s is an historic landmark, tourist attraction and busy parish church.

People have worshipped on this site for over 1,000 years and is one of the largest churches in Britain. The church enshrines much of the history of England, and has great architectural beauty and significance. It is a home of prayer and worship, with a strong musical tradition. St Mary’s was founded on its present site in 1123 by Roger de Newburgh, the Earl of Warwick.

A distributed point source system from the d&b xC and xS range was chosen for maximum audio quality and the physical performance of each loudspeaker. The d&b 16C column speaker chosen for the main nave, its small form factor and cardioid dispersion pattern results in balanced level distribution across the listening area while increasing gain before feedback when working with open microphones, a huge bonus for system design. The d&b 4S chosen as discreet fill speakers for the chancel choir stalls and nave aisles.

In order to assist the design process, the church Nave and Chancel were modelled in d&b ArrayCalc to precisely predict performance of loudspeakers within the church.

Existing cabling infrastructure within the church was expanded to provide additional XLR connectivity for microphones inputs and Cat5 points for future digital audio devices, with speaker cable preinstalled in readiness for future expansion of the loudspeaker system. In order to minimise the visual impact of the new installation the SFL installation team opted to run cabling through the church roof as much as possible.

An Allen and Heath Qu-Pac was chosen for it’s small rack mount footprint and suite of apps for greater wireless control. An Apple iPad was provided to give full control over all Qu-Pac functionality via the Qu-Pad app, simultaneously a customised Qu-Control app provides a simple interface for non-technical users to control the essential parameters of the Qu-Pac.