Sound Salvation

Melbourne's Salvation Army Temple is architecturally significant as an example of the high Victorian style, drawing extensively on the architecture of the French Second Empire. The range of window styles and sizes, the facade decoration of pediments and pilasters and the steeply raked flanking mansard roofs clearly mark the building as an excellent extant example of its type. The use of cast iron columns and beams internally to support the main staircase and the gallery to the auditorium demonstrates the gradual emergence of structural iron within high rise buildings in Melbourne.

The building was originally erected for the Young Men's Christian Association, but due to financial difficulties it was taken over by the Savings Bank Commissioners and subsequently purchased by the Salvation Army for 19,500 pounds in October 1894. The building was dedicated the January 1895 as the Salvation Army's Australasian Headquarters and Central Barracks. It now operates as the Army's Southern Territorial Headquarters.

In early 2011 the need for a new audio system became paramount and Aaron Young was called in to oversee as the project designer. 'We tried out a bunch of different speakers and finally settled on the dB technologies DVA line array system', says Aaron. The room faced many different audio challenges as it was designed long before speaker transducers we even thought of. 'It's great to see line array technology for these types of rooms, as you can achieve a lot of pattern control', continues Aaron.

The final system that was installed was 6 x DVA – T4's, 2 x DVA S20's and a Yamaha M7-48ES for control. The monitors of choice are also from the dB Technologies: 2 x DVX-DM28 and 2 x DVX-DM15. All of this was supplied by Entertainment Warehouse, while the installation was done by Fitzpatrick's Pro Audio.

CMI Audio