While the building is no longer used for religious purposes, the grand Gothic architecture of the Old Church of St John the Baptist is a strong draw for tourists and photographers from around the world to the Lithuanian town of Zapyškis. Also a popular venue for cultural and music events including the annual Kite Festival and Pažaislis Music Festival, the church recently contacted Vytautas Stasiukaitis, system designer at Audiotonas, to help redesign its audio system.
‘The church had very long reverberation times and we weren’t allowed to install acoustic treatments of any kind due to its cultural designation,’ Stasiukaitis says . ‘That’s why the only solution for this scenario was a beam-steered loudspeaker system from Renkus-Heinz.’
Audiotonas installed and commissioned four IC8-RN digitally steerable loudspeakers called for in the audio redesign. A member of the Iconyx Gen5 Series, the IC8-RN gives sound system designers the power to create a system to cover problematic spaces with up to four steerable beams that can be individually shaped and aimed. The triple tweeter ‘array within an array’ design reduces the distance between high-frequency sources for greatly improved performance with consistent, broad horizontal dispersion.
Audiotonas also added two CA112S-RN subwoofers to the system for the bass response needed for festival performances. The CA112S-RN is a 12-inch direct radiating subwoofer for any application where strong, tight bass response is required. Used singly, it can add bass to 6-inch and 8-inch loudspeakers and steerable arrays. In multiples – as at St John the Baptist – it is a powerful addition to music systems requiring a compact subwoofer system.
After hearing the new loudspeakers, the church leadership and staff were impressed by the improvements. ‘Our main goal is to provide solutions that meet the needs of the client, and I’m proud to say we were very successful in the case of the Old Church of St John the Baptist,’ Stasiukaitis says. ‘The church is more than 400 years old and still looks great. Thanks to Renkus-Heinz, now it sounds great, too.’
