Choosing the best sound system for your church can prove to be a daunting task. There’s no simple one-stop-shop solution because so many factors are at play when it comes to how to set up a church sound system. Church sound system setups must be able to deliver consistent high-performance sound for everything from simple voice projection to more sophisticated live praise and worship services.
You’ll need the right combination of speakers, mixer/amplifier, microphones, and other church audio equipment, but you’re not alone in trying to figure it out. As you are considering how to design a sound system for your church, we’ve come up with 6 questions you need to answer to help guide you to your perfect church PA sound system.
Is it a good time to update my church sound system components?
Speakers and electronic components simply wear out over time. Any distortion, clipping, or over-powering your audio system will accelerate the degradation as well. Poor sounding sound systems for churches are problematic, and quite frankly fatiguing to the audience. Technological advances and improvements occur on a regular basis, so updating makes sense to ensure the most functional and highest quality sound.
Do I need to be able to play the main sanctuary sound and music into other areas like the church foyer, fellowship hall or cry room?
If you do need to play your main sanctuary sound and church praise and worship service into other areas such as your church lobby, foyer or entryway, fellowship hall, cry room, classrooms, or gymnasium an excellent solution would be to use one of the Auxiliary (AUX) outputs of the main sanctuary sound mixer. With that AUX output, utilize an external 70V mixer/amplifier with either ceiling or surface mounted speakers to distribute the church sanctuary audio to any other areas of the building. These add-on systems can also operate independently of the main speaker system to provide background music and/or paging during or after service times.
Will the church speaker system be used for spoken word only?
The best speakers for live church worship bands and church sound should be determined by the audience size, worship environment, and physical size and dimensions of the venue. For example, a spoken word-only church auditorium with tall or reflective walls and ceilings would benefit from column line array speakers to improve vocal intelligibility and help reduce echoes.
Will the church audio system be used by a live praise and worship band with multiple instruments?
A contemporary church worship service with multiple instrumentalists, drums, guitars, keyboards, etc will benefit from speakers featuring high compression horns/drivers to impart speech clarity, as well as woofers large enough to provide the low-end desired. In many cases, these speakers can be floor or wall-mounted, pole-mounted, or flown from ceilings and trussing to meet the specific objectives.
Am I needing a large, medium, or small church sound system design?
Large churches generally need large, robust speakers in order to fire from high ceilings or distances far away from the listener. Large churches also normally need extensive speaker arrays that point in multiple directions such as line arrays or multiple speaker clusters. Large churches may also need delay speakers (speakers on the wall that help distribute audio to those seated further back) as well as balcony speakers or even under-balcony speakers. Medium and small churches will also require plenty of powerful speakers, but the type and quantity of speakers will be smaller. Medium church music systems and small church music systems can provide the same exceptional audio quality as large church systems when designed correctly.
Whether you are a large church or small, or if you are looking for an installed or portable system, we are ready to help you figure out what is the best sound system for your specific church. Reach out to our friendly team of sales engineers to help you find the perfect audio system for your church needs and budget.
Should my sound system be portable?
If you are wanting the option to use your system for an outdoor church to allow for social distancing, or if you just want the flexibility to be able to have services anywhere on your property, you will need a portable church sound system. You should also plan to use the best wireless microphone system for your church that your budget will allow. As you are asking what are the best wireless microphones for churches and the best portable church PA system, consider your audience size, worship environment, and broadcast requirements.
Whether you are a large church or small, or if you are looking for an installed or portable system, we are ready to help you figure out what is the best sound system for your specific church. Reach out to our friendly team of sales engineers to help you find the perfect audio system for your church needs and budget. Check out our website www.proacoustics.com, give us a call at (888)-256-4112, or email us at [email protected].
