Overview

The Shrine Basilica of Our lady of Dolours is indeed the biggest and tallest church in Asia. It is a T-shaped church with an area of 25000 sq ft having three towers, two in front and one in rear.

The towers at the front are146 feet high, whereas the rear tower is 260 feet high. The ceiling of the church is shaped like a parabola and it is painted in gorgeous colours, depicting the Mother and her seven Dolours.

The Challenge

The church faced sound reverberation problems for many years because of the height of its ceiling. Church attendees complained that they could not hear the prayers properly.

Analysis

The R & S team which studied the problems determined that:

• the church needed a sound system with wide horizontal range and controlled vertical dispersion
• Inside the church acoustical treatment to absorb unwanted reflections was necessary
• Speech intelligibility had to be maximized
• Live and recorded music needed faithful reproduction

The Solution

After much research work and experimentation, our team designed a new sound re-enforcement system which would help in tackling such a problem.

• For the very first time ever in India, a true line source speaker system called Pulz LA 602 with matching amplifiers (Pulz RS 600) and Digital Processing unit (Seed DPA 240) was used. The Pulz LA 602 is the state of the art source speaker system powered with planar drivers (Ribbon Speakers) in the critical mid high section. Planar drivers (Ribbon Speakers) are inherently true line sources, hence, highly coherent and extended high frequency response and direction control is assured. These planar drivers (Ribbon Speakers) are complemented with high power mid bass drivers for low frequency extension.


• After a study of the church including live demonstration, acoustical measurements and given the church's geometry and dimensions, our team recommended 3 Pulz LA 402 boxes, on each side in stereo configuration for uniformity in sound level from front to back. The positioning of these boxes was determined after measurements that were taken by our architects.


• The church wanted to check various speakers before finalizing. So we gave them free demonstrations of the recommended Pulz LA 602 for a period of two weeks. The church took time in making their choice by checking many brands of speakers. In the end, they came to the conclusion that the range of our Pulz speakers was better than any other speaker.

The Result:

The whole sound system for the church was calibrated in such a way that the speech intelligibility was maximized.

Our engineers also made sure that the system was installed, calibrated and maintained to the church’s fullest satisfaction. The R & S team exceeded the expectations of the Church.

In fact, the church authorities and the congregation now bless R&S since they can hear the prayers and sermons’ properly.