How To Design A Good Sound Speaker For A Big Church

I could suggest a Klipsch corner burning bush, but few would get the point, so let me ask you to try giving some specifications. How big? What surfaces? What is your budget? etc?

Please don't take offense, but speaker design is an very complex topic. I don't think you really mean that you want to design a speaker, anyway. You mean a sound system, I hope. My advice is to take the details of the church and your money to a reputable sound system sales company and get their advice.

Acoustics is an incredibly complex subject. Drop a pebble into a smooth swimming pool and watch how the ripples reflect off the walls and each other. Get professional help.

I know Klipsch.

lyn is correct here. I worked as a sound engineer for local bands as a way to help pay for college. Before that I was a Sonar Technician in the Navy where I studied and was trained in the science of sound. I currently (among other systems) design sound systems for churches quite frequently. The reason so many people think the sound system in a church sucks is because it probably does. These systems are usually laid out by an electrical engineering firm for the Architect, by those who should stick to electrical design. If you try to go this one on your own using the advice from CR4, your church will promptly arrive at the alter of sucky sound. You will be much better off if you use the admonishments of CR4 and take lyn's advice. You can thank lyn later.

Sorry to tell you but the sound reinforcing cabinet, crossover design and driver combination will probably be the least of your problems in getting a large cavity like a big church to sound "good". Don't get me wrong, designing a monitor quality speaker is no small engineering task. But this engineering task pales in comparison to the complex political and acoustic difficulty one encounters in dealing with the highly resonant cavity of a church that is assembled by loving parishioners.

Good luck.

This is like asking a contractor to build you a nice house without telling the contractor what you want exactly.

Sound reinforcement is no different than any other engineering discipline.

I don't mean to be nasty, but you have about as much chance as succeeding as an alligator above the arctic circle.

I design and build speakers as a hobby - not bad ones given the reviews from other audiophiles, too. I have thousands of dollars in software and test equipment. I also have many years of self study to get where I am and I know many others who are much more accomplished at this field than I.

The long and short of it is that you have no idea what you are asking for nor any idea of how much effort is required.

The cheapest route I can suggest (less than $50) is to get Vance Dickanson's Loudspeaker Design Cookbook. You might try a good library first.

This book will get you started, but for your application you need to go much deeper. However, once you start reading the book you will soon realize that it is easier to build a ship than successfully build a professional sound reinforcement system in a church.

You will get more accomplished sooner and cheaper if you just hire a professional company to install a pro system in your church.

GA! Even the pros don't get it perfect the first time. They redid the old opera hall here and wound up with a dozen or so "dead" seats. The contractor came back and stuck reflectors/absorbers on the ceiling and sidewall. I think there are still 2 or 3 they couldn't fix.

Most churches sound lousy. They do the systems empty (stone and wood everywhere) and then all the people show up in clothes.

You wrote, "... and then all the people show up in clothes."

Thank God! ;-)

AH. Sound advice, for Shure.

You don't want to bring a klipsch, disco 200 or a earthquake system into a church. Because the last one will just make it a quake to happen.

Try with many small "projector" (directional) speaker types, like column types or ball pendants and use no low booster systems or high volumes. Connecting many small speakers might make it practical to feed these from resp. 50,75 or 100 Volts lines** with individual taps or elpad (L -pad) potentiometers. Project to the people, since they are the only acoustical absorbers available, considering your church has still churchgoers.

A church with individual head phones (with active NR?) might be your opportunity? You might be the first?

(**The (high) volts systems allow you to connect plenty of speakers on the same circuit. The impedance is high. The amps have a end stage that feeds a transformer to these values.)

maybe a new technical hat with headphones, design opportunity?

If your prayers are effective, all will be revealed to you. (I've never yet seen this design method in any engineering curricula, but I haven't seen Liberty University's course catalog, either.)

If you get the chance, visit the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake. Ask them how they got the sound so good. It really is impressive to stand in the back and hear a pin drop in the choir pit? loft? dais? - whatever they call it.

Foci of ellipsoid?

I am a sound man for a local church. If the building was not designed for quality sound from the start it will be tough to make everybody happy. The area of the stage should be like a shell but is usually a rectangle with posts, crosses and such. Get a local sound company to look at your building and make recomendations for the house speaker locations. If it is long and slim or has a balcony you made need some delays from the main board. A good digital sound board and a trained operator will make a world of difference. The best system in our area is at a local mega church with Bose curved speakers overhead off to the side of the stage. Too large of speakers will make high pitched singers sound like they are in a barrel. Put your money in microphones and headset monitors for your band and singers. Then you make them sound good in the house.

dc