The Cathedral Church of All Saints—better known as Derby Cathedral—is an important spiritual and cultural hub for Derby and surrounding areas. With at least 18 services per week in addition to the special and seasonal services, having a modern, flexible audio system was imperative. The Cathedral recently turned to specialist consultant and integrator, Charles Brown of Acoustic Solutions to upgrade their audio solution with a comprehensive point source system from KV2 Audio.
With years are audio experience specifically in churches and cathedrals throughout the U.K., Brown is often among those called for houses of worship looking to upgrade or renew their systems. “The pandemic was a catalyst for change for many churches as they were forced into live streaming in order to continue to connect with their congregations,” explained Brown. “I’ve installed over 40 live streaming systems in churches across the UK as a result, and it was whilst advising Derby Cathedral on this topic that it became apparent that their current loudspeaker system was less than adequate for the job.”
The Cathedral needed clarity of the spoken word and detailed, low-level playback that could be perfectly heard without over-exciting the acoustic of the building. Brown demonstrated several products from a number of brands, but it was the ESD25 and ESD5 from KV2 that the cathedral (and Brown) preferred above anything else.
“I generally find that once clients have been exposed to KV2, they don’t want anything else,” stated Brown, “and if it were up to me, I’d use KV2 on every job if I could get it into the budget. In this case, ESD5 and ESD25 were an ideal choice—sufficiently compact that they fit in architecturally yet loud enough without being intrusive and with a clarity and detail that is second to none, all of which is perfect for a cathedral environment.”
Brown replaced around 30 100v line loudspeakers with a total of 16 ESD cabinets in white to blend seamlessly with the architecture. He deployed four of the larger, more powerful ESD25s at the front of the space near the altar to provide a little more bottom end, adding that the acoustics are such that any bass frequencies fill the space without effort. The rest of the Cathedral is covered by 12 of the more compact ESD5s. An Allen & Heath AHM matrix mixer defines eight speaker zones allowing areas to be isolated when not in use and the levels of each zone to be adjusted for flawless coverage with no hotspots or dead zones.
“We’ve had nothing but praise for the system since it’s been in, both from users and those who have experienced the sound it delivers,” reported Brown. Derby Cathedral operations manager Jessica Kilmurray is in full agreement: “We’ve had a huge number of positive comments about how the new system looks and sounds from members of the Cathedral community,” she notes. “It just goes to show that it’s already making a significant impact on the quality of our services, which is marvelous.”
