Issue 37 Spring 23 WEB - Flipbook - Page 80
St George’s Tames the
Dragon of Poor Sound
A St George’s Cathedral in London, seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Southwark,
was built in 1848. Badly damaged during the Blitz of 1941, it was restored and reconsecrated
in the following decade. The high, vaulted ceilings, numerous pillars, large leaded windows
and expanses of smooth stonework, all present challenges to effective sound reinforcement.
Thanks to their long experience of quality house of
worship AV installations, Cunnings Recording Associates
were recommended to the Cathedral Dean as being able
to help and, for the past 5 years, have been carrying out a
rolling programme of upgrades.
“The cathedral had an ageing sound reinforcement
system, but it had never been properly commissioned
which meant that the congregation had difficulty in hearing services clearly” says the company’s Daniel Cunnings.
“No delays or equalisation had been set up for any of the
loudspeakers meaning speech intelligibility was poor. As
well as services the cathedral also hosts a range of other
events but the existing system was not easy to operate, so
another intention behind the upgrade was to allow them
to use their audio facilities to their fullest extent.”
The cathedral commissioned a two-stage upgrade to the
sound system, the first being to quickly and radically
improve the sound quality for the spoken word. This
meant replacing the existing audio processors and
programming the right amount of equalisation and delay
for each output. "The cathedral wanted the system to be
as simple as possible to operate, so the use of automatic
microphone mixing was essential,” says Daniel.
The second stage of the project saw new speakers and
amplifiers installed to further improve the sound, and new
wireless microphones to avoid unwanted interference.
There are 25 loudspeaker locations throughout the cathedral covering the congregation, side chapel, choir, clergy
and organist which have been replaced with aesthetically
pleasing column loudspeakers to better control the sound
and reduce reverberations.
