Of the many houses of worship worked on by AV installation company, Old Barn Audio (OBA), the Syrian Orthodox Church in London’s East Acton area will rank as one of the more unusual.
Equipped with Martin Audio‘s CDD (Coaxial Differential Dispersion) sound reinforcement loudspeakers in time for its consecration, the church is described as “an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world.” Due to the war in Syria, the community of Syriac Orthodox Christians in Britain has grown considerably.
The church employs the oldest surviving liturgy in Christianity, the Liturgy of St. James the apostle, and uses Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic spoken by Jesus Christ and his apostles, as its official and liturgical language.
OBA was one of several companies asked to bid, and was awarded the contract largely as a result of director Neil Kavanagh. “I have fitted out more than 250 churches and have wide experience working in Grade 1-listed buildings,” he says.
This may not fall into that category but is certainly a traditional, solid built church, which has now been completely reconfigured.
“Aesthetics were vitally important, and we would only specify Martin Audio for a project such as this,” states Kavanagh of a building that will accommodate up to 250 congregants.
Dividing the space into four zones, and opting for discreet white versions of the CDD, he specified six CDD8 for the main nave, two positioned either side of the altar and the remaining two pairs mounted in portrait mode down the length of the aisle, radiating sound into the congregation. With the reduced ceiling height of the side aisle, a further white CDD8 has been deployed.
A separate hall can be used either as an overspill, or with the addition of bifold doors, become an independent space, although a 50-inch LCD screen enables the activity from the main church to be relayed from the altar camera via the matrix switcher.
Meanwhile, Kavanagh has turned to a pair of Martin Audio’s new weatherized CDD, specifying a pair of CDD10-WR outside the building. These broadcast the sound of bells ringing from the church when it is in session.
Throughout the church, the loudspeakers are set no higher than 4 meters above the ground and thanks to Martin Audio’s versatile wall brackets, which allow tilt and swivel between landscape and portrait modes, OBA has been able to optimize the sound for the congregation.
An inherently ‘live’ building loses much of its reverberation, with the carpets laid for the celebrants and absorption by the large number of worshippers who flock here.
A Mackie DL1608 supporting WiFi devices allows mixing to take place from anywhere in the church, zoned through the aux input on the mixer. An EQ’d and compressed aux output from the mixer into a dedicated amplifier channel activates the two external CDD10-WR cabs, allowing the bells to sound.
According to Kavanagh the faculty is delighted with the Martin Audio sound quality, whether reinforcing live music, spoken word or simply listening to the bells.
