Old Barn Audio (OBA, located in Kent) recently deployed Martin Audio CDD series loudspeakers to help overcome a challenging situation at the refurbished St. Joseph’s College Chapel in Ipswich, UK.
The chapel, forced to close for three years when it fell into disrepair, has been brought back to life after a major revamp that included the provision for a new sound system. The chapel belongs to the independent school, St. Joseph’s College, who approached OBA as the result of a recommendation.
OBA project manager Phil Clark’s first site visit revealed a pyramid-shaped building, with no internal walls, and thus no fixing points, and a 196-foot high pitch. His solution was to install three clusters of three CDD8 loudspeakers, pointing in each direction and carefully angled to suit the dispersion requirement. Two further CDD8 are positioned either side of the nave, while a slimline SX210 was the right dimension to be recessed under the stage, which bears the marble altar.
“The space is 165 feet across and 165 feet deep, with arches separating three sides of the pyramid,” explains Clark. “A standard wall or column mounting scenario was not available, so the only option was to mount the clusters on the underside of the arches to serve the venue.”
The OBA director first used EASE to model the room. “We designed the space into eight zones in order to time align the speakers with SMAART and to ensure each zone had linearity of sound,” he adds. “We could then control them individually and run these clusters at a lower level to avoid as little echo as possible in the venue.”
The CDD loudspeakers multiple purposes, including a variety of musical ensembles ranging from string quartets to full classical set-ups. “As we all know about CDD, it is a beautiful, smooth box, with a nice analog feel to it all wrapped up with a twist of modern technology and crispness,” Clark states. “We specify it all the time because it just works.”
