Bristol Cathedral was originally built as an Augustinian Abbey and dates back to 1140. Further additions to the building took place through the centuries until it became a Cathedral in 1542, with its magnificent nave completed in 1877.

Today the Cathedral continues a centuries-long tradition of being a welcoming space for the people of Bristol and visitors to the city, open daily with a rich programme of services and events, historic architecture and a peaceful garden.

To ensure the full enjoyment of this rapidly expanding range of activities by congregations and audiences, clergy and performers alike, the Cathedral recently issued a tender for the design and installation of a modern, versatile, new sound system which could perform at the highest level while also remaining relatively discreet in such a beautiful and historic building.

Bristol-based production services and installation specialists Enlightened were ultimately selected for the job. Head of Installations Henry Parr MInstSCVE takes up the story.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to be one of the Cathedral’s main technical suppliers for a while now, supporting events with anything required on either a dry hire or a production basis. We were able to demonstrate the value we could provide as one of the only local options considered in the tender and, equally importantly, also our commitment to shared values, like reducing our carbon footprint for Cathedral projects—small details that really matter.”

The Cathedral’s tender process included a fixed system specification from a third-party consultant. However, Enlightened proposed an alternative that emphasised the value a NEXO system could bring. “The primary focus was on intelligibility,” Henry explains, “and with support from NEXO Engineering, we found that their system could achieve nearly identical results to a more costly setup. This allowed us to allocate more of the budget towards high-quality microphones, advanced processing, and added infrastructure to futureproof the system.”

The bulk of the system comprises 32 of NEXO’s ground-breaking ID84 column speakers, mainly concentrated in the nave, with similarly voiced, ultra-compact ID14s nestled in the stonework under the pulpit, in the Eastern Lady Chapel and in other areas of the Cathedral.

“We really like the ID Series for a lot of reasons” says Henry. “It’ s a good format, it has a lot of flexible options in terms of rigging and mounting, and important for us is that the ID84 has the right visual profile for the installation. In a Grade 1 listed building, it’ s very, very important that the system not only sounds good, but also looks right.”

To that end, all cabinets feature a custom RAL paint finish to match the colour of the stone columns upon which they’re mounted. However, such attention to the details of ensuring a low visual impact doesn’t stop there, as Henry explains.

“All the speaker brackets and all the cabling have been custom coloured as well. We used a coloured, braided sleeving to go over the cabling, so we didn’t need to worry about what colour the cable itself was, whether that’ s black, grey, orange, whatever.”

Working in an historic, Grade 1 listed building of course presents a unique set of challenges to sound system installers.

Ben Silvey, the Cathedral’s Chief Operating Officer, explains the unique considerations required in such a historically significant space: “With three daily services and constant activity, we take great care to preserve the building’s integrity. Every cable route, drill location, and fixture must be carefully planned and approved by our Fabric Commission and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England. Enlightened understood and respected these requirements throughout the project.”

“We’ve worked very closely with the cathedral for the last 12 months, looking through extensive site visits to find the best routes for cables, often using existing cable routes in the main heating trench around the nave” says Henry, continuing the theme.

“Of all the seven miles of cable in the system, there’s only a couple of hundred metres that are actually visible.”

Power and speaker processing for the system come from a rack of NEXO NXAMPMk2s and Enlightened have provided touch-screen control for the easy configuration of the system by non-technical operators for all types of uses.

“There’ s a whole variety of events and services and concerts that happen here, and it’s really important that people are both heard and can hear” says the Revd Canon Jonnie Parkin, Canon Missioner, ahead of an Evensong service at the Cathedral.

“The new speakers have got a really good, high-quality sound. They’re clear, but they’re also very unobtrusive. The design of them, the shape and the shade blend into the cathedral architecture really well.”

In her role as Development Director at the Cathedral, Martha Lewington also values the performance and versatility of the new NEXO system.

“Under local artist Luke Jerram’s Gaia installation this autumn, we’ll have Up Late DJs, classical concerts and all kinds of different events that will hopefully attract the people of Bristol into the space, possibly for the first time. And without an amazing sound system, these things simply would not be possible.”

Commenting in conclusion for Enlightened, founder and Managing Director Simon Marcus says “I was delighted with the reaction that we got from NEXO when we brought this project, and we explained just how much we needed to work together to actually achieve where we needed to get to.

“The responsibility that we have as designers and installers to bring 21st century technology to these historic spaces is immense and we all need to really respect where we are and what we’ re doing.”

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