Meyer Sound’s CAL brings clarity to Moscow Cathedral
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: Theatre Techniques and Technology (TTT) recently installed a Meyer Sound steerable CAL column array system into Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the world’s tallest Orthodox cathedral. The 10,000-capacity space features a vaulted ceiling and hard walls that created reverberation times of over 10 seconds, leading the systems integrator to select the Meyer Sound system to improve clarity for the HOW’s speech and music programming.
‘By optimising the beam steering angles of the CAL loudspeakers, we were able to greatly reduce the reflections and enhance overall clarity,’ said Valeriy Babin, project engineer for TTT.
The new system comprises two CAL 96 and six CAL 32 loudspeakers each colour-matched and flush-mounted to the wall for minimal visual intrusion. Using Compass control software, the operator can adjust the vertical beamwidth and downward tilt of each CAL loudspeaker to precisely target only the audience areas in the irregular, T-shaped worshippers’ nave. The audio system upgrade also includes four UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers as choir monitors.
‘When upgrading the audio system, we gave special emphasis to clarity of speech during worship services,’ stated Roman Demidov, head of the Communication Department of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Trust. ‘The CAL system accomplishes this quite successfully, and the quality of its music reproduction is excellent as well. Now the sound is more evenly distributed around the perimeter, and the improvement has been noticed and appreciated by the priests and the parishioners.’