To ensure that sermons and other spoken elements of the service are clear, without impacting on sightlines or the appearance of the building, one historic Birmingham church has deployed d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers.
While pleasing to the eye, stained glass windows and stone or brick surfaces generally result in the same problem: multiple reflections and an extremely reverberant space. This creates a particular church sound and brings out the best of the organ and choir. However, it can also compromise the quality of sermons, and other spoken addresses, especially in terms of the clarity, or otherwise, of speech.
These were some of the issues facing St Stephen’s, a late 19th century church in Selly Park, Birmingham, in the UK. As part of a multimillion pound redevelopment of its structure and facilities, this Grade II listed building recently decided to tackle its acoustic challenges head on.
It was d&b audiotechnik installation partner, Southby Productions, based in High Wycombe, who recommended a sound reinforcement solution from d&b.
Andy Walker, from St Stephen’s, says, “I was aware that d&b loudspeaker technology was being used at high profile Christian events in the UK where the system design and installation was coordinated by Southby Productions. We had been advised that the quality of speech and music reinforcement was excellent and I hoped that we would be able to achieve similar results in our church building.”
The brief was clear; St Stephen’s needed an audio system that would vastly improve speech intelligibility but could also be mounted out of the congregation’s line of sight. The solution proposed by Southby Productions was based around the 24C column loudspeakers from the d&b xC-Series.
The 24Cs house six 4-inch low/mid drivers along with a HF array comprising of six 1.1-inch soft dome tweeters. While all column loudspeakers exhibit pattern control in the vertical plane, the xC-Series feature a unique passive cardioid setup. This results in a broadband attenuation towards the rear of 18 dB, greatly reducing reflections, and increasing gain before feedback when working with open microphones.
Chris Jones, a director at Southby Productions, says, “Because the xC-Series combine directionality and pattern control based on passive cardioid technology, we have been able to keep reflected sound to an absolute minimum in St Stephen’s reverberant building. The d&b system has significantly increased the clarity of spoken parts of the service, which is excellent news for church leaders and for the congregation who don’t miss a single word. What’s more, when combined with a 27S subwoofer, the system has the necessary headroom for contemporary worship reinforcement.”
With clarity of speech in hand, St Stephen’s also had to comply with the strict Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches (DAC) guidelines for sound installations in church buildings. To ensure the cabinets would aesthetically integrate with the gothic-style interior, the slender columns were mounted high up on the walls. To reduce the excitation of the reverberant field even further, the entire HF array was mechanically adjusted to target the audience listening area exactly.
“It’s normally very hard to meet DAC requirements for church installations,” says Jones. “However, with the discreet xC-Series we were able to tick all the boxes and ensure that the architects and congregation were equally accommodated.”
