34 REP ORT: ARCH IT ECT URAL AUDIO
GUILD FOR D CAT H E D RA L COMPANY: K-ARRAY LOCATION: GUILDFORD, UK
A visually minimalist K-array loudspeaker system from the Italian manufacturer has been installed at Guildford Cathedral, as part of a major upgrade of its audio systems. Supplied and installed by DM Music, the Vyper ultra-flat line arrays deliver exceptional intelligibility from the discreet, colour-matched enclosures. Guildford’s Grade II Cathedral occupies a commanding position on Stag Hill, overlooking the town and its university. Designed by British architect, Edward Maufe, it is one of the UK’s more modern worship spaces and one of only three built in the 20th Century. Construction started in 1936, but was halted by the outbreak of war and only resumed in 1954. Towards the end of 2017m the cathedral’s technical staff decided to replace the outdated 100V line loudspeaker system that was no longer up to the task.
The team approached Harpenden-based DM Music, one of the UK’s most experienced specialist church systems integrators, to tender for the audio design project. As part of the upgrade, it was also necessary, from a health and safety perspective, to remove the asbestos-based acoustic plaster that was lining the 22-metre high, 1,000 sq metres ceiling and, as a result, the building acoustics presented the installer with a sizeable challenge. DM Music’s Installations Director, Graham Bennewith, explained that removing the plaster made things substantially worse, so he had to design a loudspeaker system that would be intelligible, even with a subsequent RT60 reverb time of around 6.5 seconds. “As well as presenting a difficult acoustic environment, like many of our Grade I and Grade II listed churches, aesthetics was also a major considera-
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tion. The advantage that K-array has over other loudspeaker manufacturers is that not only do its installed products sound great in an environment such as this, they are also very discreet, and we were able to RAL colour-match to the stone work to make them virtually invisible,” Graham said. The Vyper KV50 column arrays installed in the nave consist of eight closely-spaced one-inch drivers in an elegant stainless-steel chassis, providing focussed listening from the inward-facing pillar locations. Their narrow vertical dispersion and wide horizontal coverage pattern ensure that sound is directed solely at the congregation and away from reflective surfaces. In addition to the 16 KV50’s covering the whole of the nave, eight KU44 colour-matched subwoofers are fixed on the outside of every other pillar, complementing the mid-high loudspeakers to provide
