St. John’s Cathedral, Brisbane Australia installed an L-Acoustics distributed 5XT system in November 2017, which has provided crystal-clear audio.
Jands Product Manager, Gerry Gavros, L‑Acoustics explained: “The interior is long and has some very excitable frequencies that occur in the strangest of places. It is stone-vaulted and there is nothing anywhere to absorb or diffuse the sound other than people and some timber carving.
“The new system also had to cater for the many different modes they run the cathedral in, with various congregation sizes and seating locations and orientations”.
Don Bowden, Director of DBAV Productions, the church’s long-time technical integrator, created the initial solution design concept using an L-Acoustics ultra-compact 5XT system, which catered to St. John Cathedral’s budget and schedule constraints.
With the help of Dan Fittell at Brisbane Sound Group, the 5XT system was first tested in a temporary installation inside the cathedral as proof of concept.
Gerry added: “It was proved that a distributed system running at lower controlled levels minimised the amount of energy that emanated into the cathedral’s domed roof structure,”. Congregation members said that this was the first time they had heard the full service clearly in over 10 years. It was enough for the Committee to proceed with the purchase.”
The final design was verified using Soundvision, L‑Acoustics 3D simulation programme before proceeding with the installation, which needed to be completed within a very strict one-month period to accommodate an important service.
To expedite the process, the system was pre-cabled at the beginning of the installation period allowing the permanent system to be swapped for the temporary one within the space of just a week.
Fittell designed a bracket using tensioned stainless-steel wire system to mount the speakers. In total, 44 5XT enclosures RAL colour-matched to blend with the walls, four in the standard colour, and five LA4X Amplified Controllers were installed throughout the cathedral.
Peter Catt, Dean of Brisbane, is very happy with the new sound system, he said:“The sound is very clear, the quality of sound for concerts and events held in the cathedral is also of a very high standard. We are very pleased with our new sound system.”
