CHATHAM, U.K. – St Georges Centre in southern England has recently seen a substantial digital audio system installation designed to transform its usability, following a new license agreement for shared use between Canterbury Christ Church University and Medway Council.
The venue, a listed building on the south side of the Thames Estuary that serves as a Victorian Maritime Museum and a church, can now be used for conference, teaching, examinations and music, with Medway Council in particular employing its conferencing facilities for presentations and their larger congress meetings.
Lord Bishop of Rochester originally dedicated the building as St. George's Church in 1906. It served the needs of the Royal Navy Pembroke barracks until the Navy's departure in 1984. Its name was then changed to St George's Centre, and its doors opened to the public for the first time, revealing its historical naval memorials, plaques and ornate stained glass windows, some unveiled by Princess Elizabeth in 1950.
The new audio system, supplied by Polar Audio, combines Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC8 digitally steerable array cabinets, a Biamp Nexus and a beyerdynamic MCWD wireless conference system.
"The project was originally specified as a distributed delayed system, but because of constraints imposed by the fact that the building is listed, we proposed to the client that they should look at a more advanced solution, in particular Iconyx," said Matthew Buck of Polar Audio.
"Being a very long narrow room with hard, reflective surfaces everywhere, it's a tough room acoustically, but by taking advantage of Renkus-Heinz's BeamWare software, we were able to direct the acoustic energy where it's required and deliver high intelligibility, despite the fact that the system is so unobtrusive as to be almost invisible," Buck added. "The client is very pleased with the results, which completely surpassed their expectations."
To cater for the varying needs of the church's new users while minimizing cabling requirements and set-up times, Polar Audio recommended a wireless conferencing system, deploying a 61-way beyerdynamic MCWD wireless system including 60 delegate units and one chairman's unit with flight-cased mobile chargers and PC-based control software. A Biamp Nexia CS DSP controller handles routing and signal processing.
For more information, please visit www.renkus-heinz.com.
