TRIANON, Mauritius – Northwind Recording, based in Durban, South Africa, chose EAW loudspeakers for the CTMI Church here. Northwind also provided the system design, analyzed the space's acoustics and performed the installation. EAW's South African distributor Surgesound supplied the equipment and managed all processing and system alignment.
Further consultation was provided by EAW's Whitinsville, Mass.-based Application Support Group (ASG), under the management of Joe Fustolo.
EAW loudspeakers selected for the space included 15 EAW AX366 and AX344 Arrayable Install Loudspeakers, six EAW JF50S Compact Full-Range Loudspeakers, eight EAW SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers, five EAW MW12 MicroWedge Stage Monitors and two EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Processors.
Amplification was provided by 10 Lab.gruppen FP+ Series amplifiers and one Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management System.
The EAW AX Series models were arranged in a low-profile design in two arcs following the contour of the church. The JF50S units were used as lip fill. Four SB1000z subs were ground stacked, and the remaining four were flown, using different high pass filter (HPF), low pass filter (LPF) and delays to create a constant low frequency response throughout the church. The MicroWedge 12 monitors were spaced along the edge of the stage.
Even though Northwind Recording principal Niklas Fairclough was familiar with the EAW brand, having completed three previous installations in South Africa using EAW AX Series Arrayable Install Loudspeakers, he was still very much impressed by the initial results.
"When we tested the system, we were blown away," Fairclough said. "With an SPL of 110 dB at the front-of-house position, the system sounded superb and very clean, and we still had massive headroom available."
Ruan Joubert from Surgesound, the distributor of EAW in South Africa, was at the final stages of the installation to act as the System Engineer and represent EAW South Africa. After using Smaart to make fine-tune adjustments to the system, he said, "With the combination of detailed acoustic design, carefully planned EAW Model selections, the Pre-Install Planning and system design with help of EAW ASG, everything came together, culminating in very a successful project with outstanding audio performance, which exceeded all the client's expectations."
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