d&b gives the acoustic response to the challenges of the Cathedral of San Eugenio

This historic building features stone construction and high-rise walls. The xC series column speakers were the option that best solved the problem of this installation.

Located in Derry, Northern Ireland, the St. Eugene's Cathedral was inaugurated in 1873, and over the years the acoustics of the building have had to be dealt with, given its stone construction and its great height.

Absolute Technologies, with his experience in similar reverberant spaces, from Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin to numerous smaller churches, understood the challenges that had to be faced. Besides, at the time they were familiar with the pattern control and cardioid performance offered by xC series column loudspeakers. d&b audiotechnik.

Ian McKeown de Absolute Technologies, with the support of Oran Burns from the d Application Support team&b, performed an initial layout using ArrayCalc software to define coverage and decide appropriate speaker positions. After this, an on-site demonstration of the system was organized, which confirmed ArrayCalc's predictions and provided the significant improvement the client was looking for.

An internal pair of cabinets has been used in the design.&b 24C-E for the front and an external pair 24C for the aisles. Below, in the room there are two pairs of 24Cs, arranged as internal and external pairs. The system is powered by two 10D amplifiers of d&b.

Absolute Technologies Installation Manager, Colin McKendry explica: “In a large, highly reverberant room like this, one of the challenges is to stop the reflection from the high ceiling, that can be heard like an annoying echo from above. The standard 24C cabinet has six LF drivers. 4 inches and an HF line array, which gives us pattern control below 400Hz. The 'E’ It is an extension of the LF drivers, which is located at the top of 24C, providing an extra octave of pattern control, which helps combat that problem”.

The other important feature of the xC series columns is the fact that they are cardioid horizontally. McKendry explica: “While many column speakers lose pattern control at about 2,5 kHz, forcing the engineer to equalize much of the lower frequency information to achieve intelligibility, The cardioid feature of the xC series extends that horizontal pattern control to the lowest frequencies.”.

The overall effect is to minimize reflections from walls and prevent spillage towards the back of the microphones., reducing the risk of feedback and increasing overall intelligibility throughout the space.

The main use of the system is for speech, but also occasionally for acoustic music. The system of d&b handles everything. “The tonal quality is excellent and the dispersion is very well controlled”, McKeown adds.,