The lead contractor for the installation was Hong Kong's Pacific Audio Supplies who made extensive use of the Bose Modeler and Auditioner design programs in the design and consultative stages of the project. Featuring an innovative Loudspeaker System constructed from multiple Bose FS32SEs in a line array configuration the system is powered by a combination of Bose and Carver power amplifiers.
All Loudspeaker Feeds from the console output groups are equalized with ARX EQ60 1/3rd octave graphic equalizers. Bose ‘double cube’ loudspeakers are used for in-fill with an ARX EC 2 providing feeds with a low frequency roll-off of 210Hz to reduce their low frequency output. ARX's AFW Anti Feedback Workstation was inserted across the Systems' roaming wireless lavalier Microphone Channel, ensuring feedback was controlled, almost irrespective of the mic position. Interestingly the front end of the system features a large number of lavalier and boundary microphones which are left open all the time, which given the Cathedral's acoustic environment could have proved especially difficult as the numerous hard surfaces ensure a very long reverb decay time of over five seconds mid band!
The solution to providing maximum gain before feedback was provided by the insertion of a channel of ARX Sixgate noise gate on each of the 18 mic channels of the Allen & Heath GL3300 Console. Operating as an automatic muting system, the Sixgate's adjustable attenuation and release times ensured their operation was inaudible.
Bose's audio system designer Peter Tsui commented: "The Sixgates are brilliant, they quieten the system down and increase gain before feedback, because only the microphones actually being used are open. It would have been a nightmare to control gain without the ARX gear."
(Lee Baldock)
