Read This First

It is possible to buy the right sound system for your church the first time. Rick Earl just made me aware of the following article written by Jim Brown of Audio Systems Group. Mr. Brown is an acoustic consultant who is also is a member of the Technical Committee of the Audio Engineering Society for Architectural Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement and the AES Standards Committee. He has graciously consented to let us republish this article that perfectly articulates the concept that making the right decisions early on can save you big in the long run. This is required reading if a new PA System is your churches future.

Why Churches Buy Three Sound Systems, and How You Can Buy Only One

Copyright 1996 Jim Brown

There's a saying among the better sound contractors that they want to sell a church their
LAST sound system. That's because, strange as it seems, most churches are so afraid of
buying sound systems that they do it three or four times before they finally end up with
one that works well enough to meet their needs!

The first is purchased when they build the church, and the architect says he'll design it.
What really happens is that he passes the work along to a sound contractor, usually the
new kid on the block who's trying to get his foot in the door by doing the designs for free.
He prints up a list of whatever equipment he has the best deals on (and which his
competitors aren't franchised for), and sends it along as a specification.

The system goes out to bid. Often our hero is the low bidder, but nearly as often someone
who knows as little about things as he does proposes a different system that's cheaper.
And since there's no knowledgeable authority to decide which is the better deal, the lower
cost system often wins. No matter -- neither system is likely to meet the church's needs
anyway, and most are replaced in a year or two.

Why are these first systems replaced? Some of the most common problems are feedback
(howling), poor speech intelligibility and muddy music caused by too much reverberation,
the system can't be heard on the platform, dead spots, hot spots, and just plain unpleasant
sound quality. And so we move on to system number two.

There are several variations on system number two. Often, members of the praise and
worship team make exploratory visits to their friendly musical instrument and recording
equipment store, where everyone either is, has been, or knows someone who is or has
been a roadie for a band. And all of those folks know how to put together a sound system
-- after all, they did it every night for their bar band, and got paid for it! Add to that the
fact that they're on commission, selling all kinds of sound equipment designed to be used
in bar bands. And gee whiz, isn't a church system just like a bigger bar band system? So
we have another designer who doesn't know much of anything about sound systems for
churches, but he's selling his equipment.

A second common variation on system number two starts out with someone in the
congregation who is either a sound contractor or knows someone who is a sound
contractor. And because he's a friend, or a friend of a friend, he's asked to design the next
system. Maybe he's actually qualified to do it, but more often his specialty is paging
systems for offices and factories, or touring systems for rock bands. So here's another
designer who doesn't know enough to get the design right.

Other common variations on the theme are electronics engineers from industry who head
down to the local Radio Shack or music store, and stereo enthusiasts who think everything
will be fine if they just install the latest monster cables, and super exotic amplifiers,
loudspeakers, and microphones.

So this second time around, the designer is chosen because he's someone's friend, but still
not because of any proven ability to put together a good church sound system. System
number two is purchased and installed, and rarely works any better than the first. But it's
now a couple of years later, twice as much money was spent as planned, and attendance is
sagging because of the poor sound. The pastor still has poor communication with the
congregation, and the praise and worship team sounds more like noise than inspiration.
Desperate measures are called for. If they're lucky, the church comes to the realization at
this point that they'd better find someone who really knows what they're doing, a proven
expert with a track record. That someone is an acoustic consultant who specializes in
sound system design for churches and performance spaces. Someone who understands
how loudspeaker systems interact with large rooms, why feedback happens and how to
prevent it, how to get good sound and equal loudness to everyone in the congregation and
on the platform, how to prevent music from turning to mush, how to prevent hums and
buzzes from happening, and all of the myriad other things which can go wrong in a big
room. Someone who insists on coming in to meet with the pastor, leaders of the praise
and worship and technical teams, study the worship space, and measure its acoustics.
Someone who will have to be paid to design the system because they don't work on a
commission or markup from the sale of the system.

To read more, the whole article in titled 3Times.pdf can be downloaded from the Tech Files page of our Download section.