|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
I'm more of a home audio buff and no little to nothing about pro equipment and installs. However, my church's music director has asked for my assistance with upgrading their sound system. The budget is $8k.Minimal equipment must include:
2 main speakers
2 18" subwoofers (organ you know)
loudspeaker processor
amplifier(s)
Speaker cablingAuditorium is approx. 125 feet deep by 80 wide with gabled ceiling peaking at about 38 feet.
Looking for simple, minimalist approach. Would like a system that is transparent, detailed, yet not overly bright, nor too warm. How about neutral? Amp is important as there are many amps that do more than just amplify and would like to stay away from those.
Appreciate your help.
Follow Ups:
Hi,I handle the sound for a church and like yourself had a much better home audio background in the beginning. May I suggest that you visit other churches in your area in a type of knowledge seeking mission. This has been beneficial to me in discovering strengths and weaknesses in different systems.
An important note is where the focus of your service is. In my case, voice intelligibility for the message seems to take precedence over musical performances as budget currently permits.
A secondary issue is esthetics. The sound maybe decent, but big black obtrusive speakers aren't always pleasant to look at.
You will be surprised to find out how little amplifier power organs require. Are you using a dedicated system for the organ?
As for feedback control, I've had great success with a Sabine feedback units. Of course, the proper speaker and layout would be first to minimize this problem.
For the look and sound did you consider looking at the Bose pro speaker line. The Bose Pro audio division isn't through the normal bose website. You can get contact information through the normal website. Normally, I wouldn't consider Bose for my home audio, but they seem to carry respectable gear for live sound.
If you do plan on doing most of the work yourself, I recommend a church or some live sound reinforcement guide.
By the way, I am currently using the Crown K-1 amp. I chose this model since fan noise is an issue. It does a fantastic job.
Hi brain echo,Feedback eliminaters can be useful for the spoken word, but can cause problems of their own for music or singing. The best way I've seen to use a Feedback eliminater is plugged into an insert on a single channel with a mic used only for the spoken word. I would never trust one of the "seek and destroy" automatic feedback eliminators on the main speakers.
Actually the key to preventing feedback is fixing your speaker system and controlling stage volume. If you have a well designed, properly installed speaker system then you find it is actually pretty difficult to get it to feed back. Last week I rearranged my sound booth and rung out the monitor eq (it's been 6 months or so since I last checked and stuff happens). I decided to see how well my pastors lavier mic worked out in the santuary. I was able to walk out in front of the central cluster, turn around and face the speakers and didn't get the slightest hint of feedback. That would have been unthinkable with our old speaker system.
Bose is a great marketing organization, but their products are not very well thought of by most sound professionals. The big problem you are normally fighting is directional control to keep sound on the audiance and off the ceiling/walls. Non-directional speakers (Bose are by design actually anti-directional) usually have little advantage to offer in sound reinforcement. Bose may sound ok for playing back prerecorded music, but normally will not give clear, intelligible sound in most churchs. What is really strange is that for some reason Bose has decided to target the church sound market and is aggressively going after that business even though they don't have the right products to serve them.
I have heard rumblings about a new line array product about to be released by Bose that is supposed to have good directional control. If this is true then I would consider them, but there is nothing in their current product line that I would consider for use in a church.
Phil
I agree.....The Bose line I was interested in is the new Panaray MA12 models.
Philip
Hi PhilipHave you had a chance to hear them yet? I have read some comments about them (very preliminary) on the Church Soundcheck website and first reports are positive.
Phil
I'm currently looking for an installed, reasonably close location with these speakers. I'll post a follow up when after a hearing test.Phil
Hi Stehno,
I have been running & maintaining a Church sound system in the UK for many years, & experienced many different venues & set ups.
some good advice from Haldor there.
If your church is a reverberant building, with lots of hard walls internally, then feedback could be a major problem & it will be very important to buy speakers with accurate projection & for their installation arangement to be well designed so that you're not bouncing sound off the back (or other) walls instead of aiming it at your audience.
The best speakers I have ever experienced for accuracy are made by a German co. called D&B, very predictable coverage without unwanted spill, also high quality, transparent sound (good if you can get them, but a set of these may blow your budget).
Transparent sound is a bit subjective, & depends on room acoustics, musical styles etc., but if you can get Sales/Hire companies to let you 'try out' equipment you might find something that really works for you.
Good, accurate speakers are available from EAW, ElectroVoice, NEXO, Turbosound, but each have their own character. The EV's have a very good vocal quality for a neutral sound, the Turbo's have a powerful bass, the NEXO's have a powerful, punchy sound for live music.....
Good amps are important. D&B make their own, QSC's PLX series are loved by all who try them, & crest & crown's high end amps are good for very high power applications. There are others I have had good experience of, but I don't know whats available across the water.Finally, for good bass, Bi-amplification (or greater) is a must. The heart of a good amp/speaker system is a good controller, which splits the signals into the frequency ranges required by the speakers, & also limits the Maximum output to protect the speakers from damage.
All worthwhile speaker manufacturers can supply controllers which are correctly configured for their speakers.
I agree with Haldor on the stereo issue.
Any questions, send us an e-mail.
Regards,
Alwyn, Sound Engineer Jesus Fellowship Church, Northampton UK.
Thanks for the kind words.I have heard good things about the D&B speakers but don't know of any USA distributors for them. Another really good brand is Renkus-Heinz, but you will never hear about them except from people that do installs.
I know there are lots of good amp makers, but I like to recommend the big three because they are good value, you can get them anywere and you can get them fixed anywhere. I tend to be a lot less concerned about sound quality from a SR amp than I would be in my home stereo. To be honest the normal SR speaker system is not that refined compared to a really good audiphile speaker so the differences between how different amps sound is usually not discernable.
I must say The EAW/QSC combination sounds killer when I play CD's through them at high volume. The double 18" Grund subs really move some air too. Too bad I can't turn it up like that during worship.
Phil
Hi Stehno,I operate and maintain the sound system at my church. My santuary is roughly the same dimensions as yours and until last year we used a system that is virually identical to the one you have described. On each side of the stage we had a two way speaker (15" woofer plus a horn) mounted on a 10' high stand with an 18" sub sitting under it.
The sound was ok for worship (not great), but the pastor's voice was awfull. We had to use so much eq to avoid feedback from his lapel mic that he sounded like he was talking from the bottom of a well. The vocal monitors on stage could break into feedback at any moment and required constant delicate adjustment. The speakers were aimed just over the heads of the congregation (so everyone could hear something) and as a result the sound bounced off the back wall back into the face of whoever was on stage with about a 1/4 second delay. This made it very difficult to speak or sing without turning the vocal monitors way up.
Last year we remodelled our santuary and I oversaw the upgrading of our sound system. We installed a single EAW cabinet hung from the center of the ceiling about 8 feet in front of the stage. The speaker is aimed down at the 3rd from the last row of seats in the congregation and we mounted the subs up front and center under the edge of the stage.
The difference this has made is incredible. The old speakers we had sounded great outside, but as soon as you brought them inside the building those non-directional horns just sprayed sound everywhere and made music and voice both sound jumbled. The bass was muddy and boomy and varied tremendously as you moved from left to right in the room.
With the new system the sound is clear and the volume is much more even throught the congregation. The new system is capable of delivering much greater volume with less distortion and is much less fatiguing to listen to than our old system. My paster is now able to come down off the stage and walk into the first few rows without the slightest hint of feedback. Before he couldn't even walk anywhere near the sides of the stage. We are much happier and the only new thing we had to buy was the center speaker, new speaker cables and the hardware to hang it. Note: The speaker was designed to be hung (flown). This is very important! You can't just screw eyebolts into any old speaker and hang it. The speaker has to be designed for this or someone could get killed.
The most important thing you have to get right in a church sound system is the speakers. Everyone in the congregation must hear the sound directly from the speakers. If the sound is bouncing off the walls and ceilings on it's way to the congregation then this will sound bad. Doing this requires a speaker that is directional (the sound goes where you point the speaker instead of all over the place). It also requires a speaker that has a very smooth frequency response. We paid almost $2000 for one speaker, but it works so much better than the other speakers that it would have been worth twice that much.
Forget about trying to do a stereo mix. This is not practical in a church without have a very experianced audio consultant (not a salesman) design your system and would take at least 3 times your budget. A mono mix also makes it possible to run the Central Cluster and subs from a single amp. Use an active crossover and bi-amp the system (subs/main cab).
The only thing that matters about the amp is that it have enough power and be reliable. If the amp doesn't have enough power then it is going to clip and that will sound bad and blow up speakers. If the amp dies then your church is going to be shut down until it is repaired or replaced. The acoustic properties of your space and the speaker systems response will so totally overwhelm any influence on the sound that the amp could have that I wouldn't even consider this an issue. You should only consider an amp from QSC, Crest or Crown. The other manufactures will not give you the reliability you need. My personal preference is the QSC PLX Series of amps, these are very lightweight and powerfull amps with excellent reliability. You should plan on at least 1000 Watts driving the subs (and I would double this if you plan on doing contempory worship). A good choice would be the PLX-3402 (1700 Watts per channel into 2 ohms or 3400 Watts bridged into 4 ohms).
You would be very wise to lurk a while on the Church Sound Check discussion board before you spend your $8000. The system you described in your message is the typical music industry bar-band sound system and will not serve your church well. The needs of a bar band are very different from those of a church. I suggest that you hire an audio consultant to design your speaker system. This will help ensure that the speaker you install doesn't have to be replaced in a year or two because it doesn't do what people want. You should be able to find one in your area by just posting a message requesting this on the Church Sound Check discussion board.
Best Regards,
Phil Ouellette
Vineyard Christian Fellowship
Greenville, SC
Phil, thanks much for the very informative response. All points well taken. What do you think of the Crown K-1 amps for the mains? These supposedly come highly rated.-John
Crown makes excellent amps.No problems with that amp that I am aware of.
Phil
Check out the place below first:
I'll just mention a speaker manufacturer for sound reinforcement that no one will probably bring up; Yorkville. I've heard them in a club playing music through them and they sounded great, and these were the BIG ones!A great place to look for equipment is fullcompass.com
Good luck!
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: