Set among older Byzantine churches, the more recent vintage Agion Panton (All Saints) Church opened 1974, in the village of Deryneia in Southeast Cyprus. construction was interrupted by the Turkish invasion of that year but resumed in 1987, reaching completion in 1992.

The church’s architecture is influenced by both Byazantine and modern tradition, featuring a tiled roof dome and tall bell tower. Murals of the saints and scenes from the New Testament fill its interior, which seats 550. The sanctuary’s acoustics are characterised by many hard surfaces, considerable ceiling height, empty space and a 30m-high dome.

The sound system for its beautiful but acoustically complex sanctuary, was designed and installed by V Hypersound & Light, which specialises in challenging houses of worship. With the advice of the Renkus-Heinz team, V Hypersound & Light designed a system based on Iconyx Gen5-series digitally steerable line arrays, supplemented with CX-series point-source loudspeakers.

‘At Agion Panton Church, our team decided to work with Renkus-Heinz IC16-8-RN digitally steerable line arrays to cover the main area of the church,’ says V Hypersound & Light Ltd Technical Manager, Vassos Mouzouras. ‘Renkus-Heinz’ beam-steering technology is perfect for dealing with the high reverberation time that resulted from the dome.’

The Renkus-Heinz IC16-8-RN digitally steerable line array enables up to four beams to be individually shaped and aimed, with beam control effective down to 400Hz. The array uses three four-inch coaxial transducers and five four-inch low/mid-frequency transducers, progressively spaced to extend the length and LF beam-control frequency, along with eight amplifier and DSP channels. The ability to precisely steer individually shaped beams enabled the V Hypersound & Light team to direct the sound at the congregation, while minimising reflections off the hard surfaces and especially the dome. ‘The Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers that our team installed sounded great and created a balanced-sounding area, with no dead acoustic spots,’ Mouzouras says.

Although the arrays address the entire main sanctuary, Mouzouras’ team added a final and important touch: ‘We used a Renkus-Heinz CX41 compact, four-inch coaxial, two-way loudspeaker to cover a small area for the priest,’ he explains. ‘This is a point-source loudspeaker that provides a full-range response in a miniature enclosure, so we were able to provide clear, accurate sound for the priest with minimal visual intrusion.’

With its new Iconyx Gen5 system, Agion Panton Church’s congregation now enjoys clear, intelligible, high-quality sound. In defiance of the building’s complex acoustic.