A premium sound system: St Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, London

In West London, an incredible space lies hidden by an unassuming facade: Saint Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The Cathedral, built between 1877 and 1879, has a bustling congregation, with a strong Greek community in the area, leading to multiple services a day with hundreds of people in attendance.

The challenge: big space, big congregation, poor acoustics.

The original sound system had been built upon over the years, but was not providing any intelligibility, with a huge reverberation time caused by the hard marble surfaces and huge mosaic dome. Although fine for background music for visitors during the day, the lack of clarity through the system had become a huge problem, and regular complaints were coming in after each service, as the congregation struggled to hear the important liturgy being given.

Less is more; picking the right equipment

“I was instantly blown away with how stunning the Cathedral is, and a bit nervous on how we could achieve what the client was looking for!” said Stephen, who carried out the initial visit and worked with one of our close suppliers to design and install a system that could cope with the demands of the space. 

The brief was clear: intelligible sound was a must, but it could not come at the detriment of the aesthetics of the building. This helped narrow down the potential list of products, as cabling would need to be kept to a minimum, and speakers would need to blend in as much as possible.

After a demo, Renkus-Heinz column loudspeakers were selected, along with an Allen + Heath processor to give flexibility to the processing and routing of the system once installed. The speakers were chosen because of their very precise vertical dispersion, which meant that sound was focused on the congregation, not up into the cavernous ceiling space, reducing the echo created when the system was in use.

“Given the cathedral’s remarkable architecture, it was essential that the system was designed and installed with absolute care, both technically and visually,” Neath continues. The fixing options in the space were very limited, so APi’s engineers re-engineered the original fixing method of wooden backings, extending these to work with the new speakers.

The team was on-site for a week completing the installation, with the rack pre-built in our workshop to minimise on-site disruption and speed up commissioning once the cabling was complete. In total, 6 column speakers were installed in the Sanctuary, with two cabinet speakers in the foyer, all installed in an unobtrusive way, so that they blend in seamlessly with the architecture of the building.