Designed by architect Magaš and built in 1988, Croatia’s Franciscan Church and Monastery of St Nikola Tavelić is styled to resemble a dove or ark. After many years service, its existing audio system had become outdated and unable to address the acoustic presented by the church’s large concrete interior surfaces and decorative woodcuts.
To improve sound coverage and speech intelligibility, LAV Projekt proposed installing a new RCF sound system – four L 2406T W loudspeakers above the altar to cover the congregation area, four DM 41 B loudspeakers in the apses above the seats and choir, two MQ 80P W outdoor speakers above the entrance doors and an MR 40 W control loudspeaker in the sacristy. The installed loudspeakers provide natural sound reproduction while blending in visually.
The RCF L2406TW is loaded with six 5-inch woofers and four 1-inch dome tweeters placed in front of the centre woofers, providing coherent dispersion of sound. The wide horizontal coverage angle and controlled vertical dispersion enable correct sound reproduction over a wide area and help limit problems created by microphonics and reverberant sound. In order to further improve the intelligibility of speech, LAV Projekt engineers used a speech filter.
New cabling was also installed for all loudspeaker positions, with all audio in the church managed from a rack cabinet in the sacristy. LAV Projekt reports that its client was pleased with the results, as the new system delivers high-quality sound while respecting the church’s architecture and spiritual atmosphere.
