The Church of St Anne in Aigburth, Liverpool, dates back to 1837 and is a National Heritage Grade II Listed building, which is used for worship and musical performances.
Dan Orange of integrators Electric Orange, was invited by the church to modernise its AV facilities, including delivering a new PA system.
Strict regulation surrounding the building’s listed status meant that the installation had to be as inconspicuous as possible, with minimal physical impact on the fabric of the interior. Orange consulted with POLARaudio to determine the best way ahead, taking into account the church’s budgetary and architectural constraints.
AD Systems i.Flex speakers were used throughout, chosen for their acoustic performance, numerous mounting options and pleasing aesthetic. 2 x i.Flex 10, 2 x i.Flex 8 and a further 2 x i.Flex 6 speakers were situated for optimum coverage. The speakers were powered by MC2 T1500 and T1000 amplifiers, delivering clean sound alongside ultra-reliable performance.
The distribution of AV signals in the most efficient and discreet way possible was central to the task at hand. The nature of the building and the constraints of its listed status meant that cable runs had to be kept to a minimum. A Wyrestorm SW-0501-HDBaseT presentation switcher and scaler was used in conjunction with 5 x Wyrestorm AMP-001-010 HDBase Receivers/Digital Amplifiers, enabling all required signals to be transmitted up to 70m using a single Cat5 cable to connect each amplifier via its transmission-repeating function. In this way all the required signals could be routed to the displays with minimal cabling.
The audio output capabilities of the amplifiers also allowed audio to be routed over the Cat5 from the video location, to be extracted at the amplifier nearest the Mackie iPad-controlled audio mixer.
Dan Orange of Electric Orange says: “The i.Flex speakers offered great sound and gave me options to mount them in a way most sympathetic to the interior. Their flexibility allowed me to ‘hide’ them in plain sight on the church’s beams. The Wyrestorm system reduced what could have effectively been a matrix with multiple cable runs, to a single Cat5 cable, daisy chaining both video and audio signals.”
