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Trinity Cathedral:
Sound Planning recently installed a new sound system at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral located in the “Omni” area of Downtown Miami. Trinity Cathedral is among the oldest churches in Miami founded in 1896. The architecture is typical of many European Cathedrals with high ceilings, stained glass and virtually all reflective surfaces. This type of architecture presents the most difficult challenges for speech intelligibility. The challenges are exacerbated by the fact that the building’s aesthetics make a central loudspeaker cluster completely unacceptable.
Sound Planning has worked with The Cathedral since 1975. We began by making minor adjustments and
improvements to the existing sound-column based system. In 1995 we installed a distributed system with 15 box speakers installed on the structural columns. Our goal was to get each listener within 25 feet of a speaker to improve clarity. This was an improvement by nineties standards but as time went by there was still much to be desired. Several years ago, we demonstrated a large concert-style line array speaker system. The sound was excellent but the components were very large and obtrusive and the costs were prohibitive.
During 2011 we installed several house of worship systems using the JBL CBT series compact line arrays.
In each case we were very satisfied with the results so we proposed a demonstration at Trinity Cathedral. The results were impressive and we were given approval to proceed with the installation.
We used 2 CBT-70J/JE arrays for the sanctuary and 2 CBT-50 for stage fills. These speakers are controlled by a Protech automatic mixing system and DBX digital signal processing.
The sound in the Cathedral has been “cleaned up” considerably. Gone is the audible “overhang” caused by delay in the distributed system. The sound is equally impressive on voice and music. We were told that the new system received applause from the congregation the first Sunday it was used. The JBL speakers almost disappear into the vast architecture and 4 small narrow speakers do the work of 15.
Contact Us today for your free consultation and demonstration.
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