Sound system purchasing decisions are among the largest financial decisions a church has to make. Depending on the size of your worship venue, a new sound system can exceed $100,000 or even $200,000. Even if you’re working at a smaller church that is only in a position to spend $10,000 or $20,000 on a new system, that’s a major expense. As a church technical director, I feel I have a responsibility to spend the church’s money wisely, because let’s face it, we are ultimately spending the hard-earned money of our congregants.
Regular Complaints
We’ve all dealt with complaints from members of our congregation about one aspect of the sound or another. I try to listen to any comments we get about the sound system and evaluate each one on its own. If you are fielding regular complaints about the sound, ask yourself if the problem is with the system itself or an operational or acoustical issue. A new system is not always the solution to these types of problems.
Hidden Signal Processing
I’ve encountered a number of churches that didn’t fully understand the signal chain between their console and their loudspeakers. Many churches have a drive rack or other “hidden” signal processing that was set up four technical directors ago, and no one ever took the time to fully understand what was happening in their processor. I seem to remember several churches telling me that they “can’t get into” their processor because it was locked out by a previous technical director or audio engineer. If you’re in this situation, don’t be afraid to take that signal processing out of line entirely to see if it is causing you problems. If necessary, contact the equipment manufacturer, explain your situation to them, and see if it is possible to bypass the password protection. You may be amazed how much life you can bring back to your P.A. when you aren’t crushing the limiters all day, or when you flatten out that 16 dB cut at 2k Hz.
Poor Coverage
One of the most common problems I encounter with church sound systems is poor coverage. Sometimes this is the unfortunate result of a bad design, where the wrong speaker cabinets were chosen for the room. In other cases, re-aiming the P.A. or tweaking the splay angles between boxes can remedy poor coverage. Before you decide you need a new system due to poor or uneven dispersion, ask yourself if you can re-hang, re-aim or otherwise reconfigure your current system to provide better overall coverage. Keep in mind that not all coverage problems are created equal. Acoustic problems in your space can cause frequency response variations across your listening area that can’t be corrected with new speakers and amps. While a well-designed P.A. can help tame a poor acoustic space, it cannot entirely solve your acoustic or coverage issues. Finally, if you have a few isolated areas that are hurting for better coverage, look into adding a fill cabinet or two to address those areas as opposed to replacing your entire P.A.
Inadequate Headroom
Many current church sound systems were installed in the early 2000’s. At the time, a lot of churches were just launching contemporary worship services for the first time. Purchasing a sound system that had the power, headroom and low frequency extension to support contemporary worship wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list. In addition, the quality of the installation work during that time period simply wasn’t up to today’s standards. Few churches worked with high-end A/V integrators 15 years ago, and many church sound systems were installed by anyone in the congregation who was willing to help. The congregation had little or no expectations about the sound reinforcement in church a decade or two ago, and many systems barely met the minimum requirements for the space they were installed in.
The church I work at struggles with an inadequate, poorly installed sound system even to this day. The P.A. in our sanctuary is nearly 15 years old, and it isn’t sufficient for contemporary worship. Fortunately we only hold contemporary worship services in our main sanctuary a few times a year, but when we do, the system lacks the headroom, dynamic range and low frequency reproduction necessary for such events. Ironically, the system is more than adequate for our typical traditional worship services, consisting of piano, choir and a solo vocalist. Most of our traditional worshippers think the sound system is just fine, which has made it more difficult for me to convince church leadership that we need to replace the system.
Regular Maintenance and Repairs
If your current system is regularly in need of costly repairs, it may be time to ask yourself if it’s worth sinking more money into the system. I think of sound systems like I think of a car. If you have a 10-year-old car that originally cost $20,000, and it’s in need of $5,000 worth of repairs, those repairs may cost more than the car is currently worth. That doesn’t often make sense, and people will typically get rid of their old car in favor of a newer car at that point. Use that same logic for sound systems. If your system is aging, keep close track of how much money you spend on maintenance and repairs each year. It should become fairly obvious when you are putting too much money into repairs that could otherwise be put towards an entirely new system.
