L-Acoustics revamps Martinikerk’s audio system

Martinikerk (Martini Church) in Groningen has been a place of worship since the year 1,000. In 1975, the Martinikek Foundation was created to look after the church as well as keeping it a place of worship. Its latest project included the installation of a Syva audio system from L-Acoustics.

Due to the amount of complaints from the previous digitally steerable arrays as well as the use of more multimedia content from the University of Groningen, requests were made for a better sound system. ‘Additional systems were rented in, but most of the time they didn’t solve the problem,’ explained Jan Ten Kampe from AV-i audiovisueel adviesbureau, who designed the new system. ‘The university in particular demanded an adequate sound system for their events and, because of the issues at Martinikerk, were thinking about choosing another location. This was when I was approached to look at this challenging project.’

When Kampe and his team started the project, L-Acoustics was in the proceess of introducing Syva to the market. With the help of L-Acoustics application engineer Gert Wiersema and loudspeaker manufacturer and distributor, Audiobizz, a system of four Syva cabinets were used for a couple of major events within the church. This was shortly followed by the permenant installation, which also included a digital controller with a dual 8x8 matrix installed to handle different settings for signal routing, EQ and delay, and was carried out by dB audiovisueel Groningen. ‘The system is pretty simple,’ said Kampe. ‘Just a pair of Syva as the front of house system and a pair used as a delayed system, and just one LA4X to power them all.’

‘The organ of the Martinikerk is rather imposing. It’s very well-known and attracts organ lovers from around the world,’ added Jan Haak, the manager of Martinikerk. ‘On weekdays, the church is open to the public and we now often hear comments from the visitors about how beautiful the organ sounds. In fact, they are listening to a recording of the organ played over the Syva system. The fact that they can’t tell the difference is proof to us that Syva is doing exactly what we want it to.’