d&b changes course of historic Stockholm church
- Details
SoundCop Consulting, who provided consultation and installation services for the project, had initially chosen another system, but switched d&b’s xC-Series column loudspeakers after attending a demo by d&b’s local partner Arva Trading at another Stockholm church, Stefanskyrkan (Saint Stephens church).
SoundCop Consulting decided to go with a combination of d&b’s xC-Series 2-way passive column loudspeakers, xS-Series loudspeakers, and B4 cardioid subwoofers along with the 10D four channel amplifier.
Natanael Lyckelind, sales and support AV/pro audio, at Arva Trading explains: “The passive cardioid function of the xC-Series column loudspeakers results in excellent dispersion control, which makes them particularly good for an environment like Maria Magdalena. SoundCop Consulting was very impressed with the results that they saw – or rather heard – at the demo.”
“We were totally blown away by how good it sounded at the demo,” confirms Jacob Julin, co-owner, SoundCop Consulting. “So, we went back and changed the whole specification for Maria Magdalena. This is the first two-way passive column speaker that we have seen that actually sounds like a proper PA system. The sound stays coherent and warm, rather than like it’s coming from a flimsy speaker, which is so often the case with the sound setup in a church.”
As Lyckelind explains, in a church the size of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena, which has such a long nave, reverberation can be a significant barrier to speech intelligibility, but the cardioid dispersion pattern of the xC-Series significantly reduces the level of the reverberant field, maximizing speech intelligibility.
In all, SoundCop Consulting installed six 24C and 18 16C column loudspeakers, eight 4S loudspeakers, two B4-SUBs and six 10D amplifiers. The entire sound system is controlled by a QSC Q-SYS audio control platform, utilising the d&b plug-in for the integration of the 10D amplifiers. The plug-in allows access to d&b amplifier parameters (Gain and Mute status, AmpPresets, Power On/Off status, etc.) directly from the Q-SYS interface.
“This is the first big installation we’ve done with d&b xC-Series in Sweden; there have been some smaller churches but nothing on this scale, so now we have a lot of technicians talking about this project. The results have been really good. A lot of choirs come to perform at Maria Magdalena Church and they like to bring their own sound systems, but when they see how well the in-house setup works, they prefer to use that instead,” says Lyckelind.
Julin adds, “The system has actually ended up being used for a bit more than originally expected; what they wanted for the church was really a sound reinforcement system for vocal (speech), but it actually works really well for smaller concerts – so long as they aren’t too loud - and choir concerts.”
Julin also reports that there are now a number of other church projects in the works resulting from the success of the Maria Magdalena kyrka installation.
(Jim Evans)
