Hills SVL Installs Sound System for St Patrick's Cathedral New Zealand

St Patrick's Cathedral and Iconyx

St Patrick's Cathedral in Auckland was opened 160 years ago and was the first Cathedral church in New Zealand. After many years of faithful service, extensive conservation and restoration works were needed. Part of the refurbishment was a new sound system.

Peter Magness of Magness Sound was asked to provide a solution for what was always going to be a challenging environment for a sound system - both aesthetically and acoustically.

Consultant Malcolm Hogg from Creative Input was commissioned to review column speaker options and began researching Renkus-Heinz Iconyx Steerable Arrays. This in turn led to an on-site demonstration against another loudspeaker option.

With its high quality performance and Beam Steering capability, the Renkus-Heinz Iconyx system came out in front and was selected for the project. Each 4" co-axial driver in Iconyx features an amplifier and DSP (digital signal processor) allowing the beam to be steered via software. Put another way, the speaker can be mounted flush against a wall and audio can be focused exactly where it is needed avoiding reflections off the back wall, balcony ledge etc. Additionally, the line array principle of Iconyx provides a high level of low frequency pattern control, enhancing intelligibility in the often difficult low-mid frequency band. This was of particular importance at St Patrick's which has a reverb time of 4 seconds at 250Hz.

Magness Sound began installation of the system in late 2007 with programming assistance from Thomas Kelly of Audio Telex and Malcolm Hogg. The Cathedral sound system received it's full commissioning early this year with all parties happy with the result.

The system includes 2 x Renkus-Heinz IC16 (16 driver steerable arrays) for the main Nave area and 2 x Renkus-Heinz IC8 (8 driver steerable arrays) for the Trancept areas. The distance from the Nave speakers to the back wall is 23m and this is covered with just two Iconyx IC16's.

Another benefit of the Iconyx option is the adjustable focal point, which means the speakers can physically be mounted higher or lower than where they would normally be (to suit the room aesthetics) with the 'height' of the audio signal adjustable via software. This was another key reason why Iconyx was selected.

System processing is via a MediaMatrix NION n3 configured for 24 inputs and 8 outputs. MediaMatrix XControl wall panels provide simple control from two locations within the Cathedral.

The Cathedral also features an Ampetronic Induction Loop system with an ILD500 loop amplifier for the Nave area and a second ILD500 for the Trancepts.

With up to 2,000 people attending Masses on a Sunday and the same again during the week, the need for a quality sound system was paramount. The staff at the Cathedral are very pleased with the performance of Iconyx, a feeling supported by the congregation, many of whom have commented favourably on the clarity of the new system. Iconyx has solved intelligibility problems in many hundreds of sites worldwide. Locally, Iconyx can be found in a wide range of venues including Sacred Heart Cathedral in Hamilton, Supreme Courts in Melbourne, St Aloysius College, Newington College and the Apostolic Society Church in Perth.

EASE model of the Cathedral.

Nave area covered by two Iconyx IC16's.