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In Reply to: Assisting with church's system upgrade posted by Stehno on January 12, 2002 at 07:46:50:
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
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Follow Ups
- Re: Assisting with church's system upgrade - Haldor 19:01:45 01/16/02 (2)
- Re: Assisting with church's system upgrade - stehno 21:31:28 01/16/02 (1)
- Re: Assisting with church's system upgrade - Haldor 20:24:49 01/19/02 (0)
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