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St. Mary of the Angels Church in Chicago required a low-profile sound system - but their first system, though invisible, could not control the church's 7.5 second reverberation time.

With St. Mary Immaculate Church in Plainfield, IL the sound system was designed concurrent with the building design - and it's totally effective.

If they’re lucky, the church comes to the realization that they’d better find someone who really knows what they’re doing: a proven expert with a track record

“I want to sell this church their last sound system.” Better sound contractors make this kind of statement with good reason: strange as it seems, most churches are so afraid of buying sound systems that they do it three or four times before they finally get one that works well enough to meet their needs!

The first system 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 is 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 the hero is the low bidder; either the budding designer or someone else who knows a little about sound and can propose an even cheaper system. Since there’s no knowledgeable authority to decide which is the better deal, the lowest bidder usually wins. But 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, poor speech intelligibility and muddy music caused by too much reverberation. Often the system can’t be heard on the platform, or there are 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. A common scenario has members of the praise and worship team making exploratory visits to their friendly musical instrument and recording equipment store, where everyone either is, has been or knows someone who is a roadie for a band. And all of those folks know how to put together a sound system—after all, they’ve done 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 by bar bands. And gee whiz, isn’t a church system just like a bigger bar band system? So we have another designer who is anxious to sell his equipment but doesn’t know anything about the specific requirements for church sound systems.

Another common variation on system number two starts 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 about the particulars to get the design right.

Other common variations on the theme have electronics engineers or stereo enthusiasts heading down to the local Radio Shack or music store. They usually believe that everything will be fine if they just install the latest exotic cables and super audiophile amplifiers, loudspeakers and microphones.

So this second time around, the church chooses a designer because he’s connected somehow to the congregation. He’s got his heart in the right place but still has no 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 that they’d better find someone who really knows what they’re doing: a proven expert with a track record. That someone is the acoustic consultant who specializes in sound system design for churches and performance spaces. This is the person who is ready to sell the house of worship its last sound system.

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