Yamaha technology solves the complex acoustics of the Basilica Nuestra Señora de Atocha

This emblematic place of worship in Madrid has a new sound system from the manufacturer, integrated by Auvycom Projects, after overcoming the acoustic challenges of the venue to offer maximum speech intelligibility.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha It is one of the most historic places of worship in Madrid, also very popular among tourists visiting the capital. The current building was built in the decade of 1890, on the site occupied by the convent of the Order of Preachers of Our Lady of Atocha, an ancient sanctuary in which the Virgin of the same name was worshiped.

Besides, The Virgin of Atocha has traditionally been considered the patron saint of Spanish royalty., and for this reason it is also called the Royal Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha., so its basilica has been closely linked to the monarchy throughout history, visited and venerated by many of the kings of Spain, as well as other historical figures.

Although the current basilica had, obviously, with a sound reinforcement system to celebrate specific services, could not cope with the complex acoustics caused by the building's large marble floor and central dome.

The faithful complained to the priests celebrating mass that they could not hear the services clearly., Therefore, the basilica staff contacted the specialist in audiovisual integration and experience in places of worship. Auvycom Projects, based in Murcia, to renew the sound system.

As an environment of the National Heritage of Spain since 1963, One of the requirements of the new audio system was that it had to be visually inconspicuous and adapt as much as possible to the architecture of the basilica without altering the environment..

Auvycom had previously worked with Yamaha on similar installations, in which sound improvement could not come at the expense of the building's architecture, and recommended a system that used the slim VXL1 linear column loudspeakers from Yamaha and its MTX3 matrix processor.

As the general director of Auvycom explains, José Antonio López Martínez, “from the first moment we saw the Royal Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha we knew that we would have to solve some serious acoustic problems. Although it didn't have a very high reverb level, by having the microphones housed in the dome, Some problems with feedback had to be resolved”.

The solution chosen to achieve this has been fifteen white VXL1-24 speakers, mounted primarily as horizontally coupled pairs throughout the main worship area, Powered by two PX3 and one PX5 power amplifiers, with the MTX3 matrix distributing the sound.

Besides, a Yamaha CD-NT670D CD player has been installed, which, in addition to playing religious music from CDs, has a USB input and streaming transmission thanks to Yamaha's MusicCast technology..

The system is also controlled with Yamaha's Wireless DCP smartphone app., which offers basilica staff the ability to choose between several configurations for different worship services and other situations where different types of music playback are needed.

“Thanks to the versatility of the MTX3 matrix processor and the high-quality, highly directional coverage of the VXL1 loudspeakers, We knew we could achieve optimal results, even with the complex acoustics caused by the floor and the dome of the basilica”, underlines the general director of Auvycom.

This integrator's relationship with Yamaha continues successfully, as López Martínez adds: “We recently installed another system with the new VXL1 column speakers and were pleasantly surprised by the result, especially when horizontally coupled, which provides a higher sound pressure with a much narrower horizontal dispersion”.