All Pro Sound upgrades two Florida churches with Turbosound
Dec 16, 2004 12:27 PM
Over the years, as churches have moved to install sound systems, they may have taken the admonition "cleanliness is next to godliness" a little too far.
Fearing visually obtrusive audio gear - most notably loudspeakers – spoiling the clean, pure look of a church interior, houses of worship commonly go out of their way to shield audio equipment from view. The downside: in the process of preserving the look, they've sacrificed sound quality, some to the point where the system is rendered virtually worthless. Audio system designers who specialize in church work have a name for the churches' fears: the "big black box" syndrome.
Jim Stenson, senior designer with All Pro Sound, a Pensacola, Florida, systems integrator, knows the mindset all too well. That scenario played out in two recent church projects the company tackled. In each, a big part of the ultimate solution to the vexing sound versus aesthetics dilemma proved to be a mix of loudspeakers from a leading name in the industry, Turbosound.
At First Baptist Church, in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, All Pro made a return appearance in 2004, three years after installing a sound system that put aesthetics ahead of sound quality. Designed by a consultant, who followed an architect's mandate that the speakers be hidden, the system proved to be inadequate. At Village Baptist Church in nearby Destin, All Pro finally got a chance to correct a system - which everyone knew was inadequate from the start - just in time for the church's one-year anniversary celebration.
The First Baptist project gave All Pro a chance to use Turbosound loudspeakers to get it right.
"We knew there were some issues from the beginning, especially due to speaker placement," Stenson says. "It got more frustrating for the church over time because a big part of the congregation couldn't hear or understand what was being said. In particular, no one wanted to sit in the outside seating sections."
Hidden behind gondolas in the ceiling, the church's loudspeakers didn't provide near the coverage that was required for the auditorium, which seats about 750 in a main floor and balcony area. Increasingly reliant on the musical instrumental elements of contemporary worship, as well as a 100-person choir and a pastor who needs to be heard, the church found the sound system was either not reaching some seating areas or was doing a poor job in areas it did cover. When All Pro was called in, Stenson's immediate recommendation was to do away with the hidden-speaker layout in favor of an entirely new configuration.
After building an EASE model of the room and inserting similar loudspeakers from three manufacturers in a bid to achieve the required +/- 4dB performance for the seating area, Stenson settled on a solution that employed five Turbosound THL-811.3 speakers in an exploded cluster.
"On paper, the best performer was the THL-811, a trapezoidal mid-high device that has a precise coverage pattern in a small footprint enclosure that blended in very nicely with the architecture," Stenson says. "As expected, they performed extremely well in real life as well."
By using the low profile THL-811s, All Pro was able to, not only effectively add 200 seats to the congregation on the outside edges but, do so in a way that didn't make for an unsightly collection of large speakers. "It's a rather small box for what it can do," he says.
Two other Turbosound loudspeaker models were part of the complement of speakers used to cover the auditorium. In addition to front fill speakers and subwoofers supplied by another manufacturer, All Pro selected two Turbosound products to solve balcony-related coverage challenges. To cover the upper area of the balcony, which seats about 75, Stenson selected two Turbosound TCS-40 passive, full-range, two-way speakers. As under balcony fills, Stenson specified three Turbosound TCS-30s, another passive, full-range, two-way speaker.
For the Village Baptist project, All Pro held up the Fort Walton project as an example of what could be done using Turbosound to correct a serious coverage problem. "They lived with the system they were contractually bound to install in their new building for a year, knowing that it wouldn't perform," Stenson says. "We sent them over to the Fort Walton church to look at that solution, and we were able to convince them that the only way to solve it was to bring speakers out into the open."
Tucked behind grill cloth in the ceiling, the original speakers were even less capable of providing coverage than those in the First Baptist Church. The reason: the space had serious acoustical problems that further hampered the ability of the speakers to do their job.
Tackling both the acoustical and the audio system problems at the same time, All Pro installed acoustical panels and specified Turbosound loudspeakers as the new sound system's focal point. But for this project, Stenson went with Turbosound TQ-440s as the components of the main exploded cluster.
Six of the three-way, bi-amped, full-range speakers were mounted in a cluster about 26 feet above the front of the platform to cover six seating areas on the main floor. In addition, Stenson installed three Turbosound TQ-425 front-loaded, vented subwoofers. Mounted behind the platform facade, the subs are specifically engineered to extend the low frequency response of the companion TQ-440s.
"The contemporary nature of their worship style required a three-way enclosure capable of a higher sound pressure level," he says.
As in the Fort Walton job, Stenson selected TCS-40s for the balcony fill areas. Seven are deployed to provide coverage for that seating area. Complementing the Turbosound products are front fill speakers and three additional subwoofers supplied by other manufacturers.
The entire loudspeaker solution has yielded a vastly improved audio environment. "They were having some serious coverage issues that were resulting in poor intelligibility due to high-level late reflections," he says. "They were able to only understand about every third word in some of the areas."
Thanks largely to Turbosound, those problems officially ended on the day the church marked its first anniversary. "The new system works well and they're tremendously happy with it," he says. "This combination proved to be exactly what the owners were hoping for - clean, clear intelligible sound throughout the seating areas."
Now, Stenson can only hope that more churches, either plagued with an ill-designed sound system or contemplating a new installation, will re-assess the beauty versus function question. With Turbosound equipment at his disposal, Stenson is confident that he can convince church clients that the answer lies in bringing speakers into the open.
"I brought Turbosound into this company about four years ago, and in that time they've performed extremely well," he says. "Often, when we first mention them to audio-savvy clients they make a reference to Turbosound being more heavily geared to the touring market. But that touring market experience can be a good thing in the installed sound market as well. Turbosound speakers are well-behaved speakers with good pattern control, plus they're great right out of the box. They don't require a lot of EQ-ing or tweaking because of the unique driver configuration. They're very easy to work with."
Visit the company at www.turbosound.com.
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