Derby Cathedral

Founded in 1943, the Cathedral Church of All Saints – better known as Derby Cathedral – is one of Derby’s most beautiful and historic sites that holds many monuments of Derby’s and Derbyshire’s past. An important spiritual venue for the city and surrounding areas, the Cathedral hosts no fewer than 18 services per week, plus special and seasonal services to celebrate important events in the religious calendar.

The Cathedral recently turned to specialist consultant and integrator, Charles Brown of Acoustic Solutions to upgrade their audio solution to bring it into line with modern requirements.

The Cathedral needed clarity of the spoken word and detailed, low-level playback that could be perfectly heard without over-exciting the acoustics of the building. Brown demonstrated several products from several brands, but it was the ESD25 and ESD5 from KV2 that the cathedral (and Brown) preferred above anything else.

Brown replaced around 30 100v line loudspeakers with a total of 16 ESD cabinets in white to blend seamlessly with the architecture. He deployed 4 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.

The main challenge with houses of worship projects in general is creating a system that complements and respects historic architecture. The KV2 solution was discreet and unimposing, which meant that it blended into Derby Cathedral’s aesthetic well and didn’t disturb any of the original features.

Apart from this, Audio Solutions faced no challenges with the installation. It was a resounding success and, since the project’s completion, there has been nothing but praise for the system.

Derby Cathedral operations manager said: “We’ve had a huge number of positive comments about how the new system looks and sounds from members of the Cathedral community. It just goes to show that it’s already making a significant impact on the quality of our services, which is marvellous.”

– A comprehensive audio solution met all the needs of Derby Cathedral, including speech intelligibility, live streaming and detailed, low-level playback.

– The KV2 solution is sufficiently compact that it fits in architecturally, yet loud enough without being intrusive and with clarity and detail.

– The solution respected the historic venue, with Acoustic Solutions choosing white models so that the products would blend seamlessly with the space.

– Since the solution was installed, Derby Cathedral has received huge amounts of praise for the system.

– The KV2 solution has had a huge impact on the quality of the services.