Question
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Followup To
Question -
Ok, I have a problem and I haven't been able to figure it out after hours of work.
Our church has an older audio system, with a 20W amp, and uses two mikes, while broadcasting to a few older speakers as well. Just recently, our amp (it is about 20 years old) started cutting out on on of the mike inputs. We decided to upgrade to a newer amp, and decided to get a larger one for future expansion options as well.
We purchased a new 40W amp, but when we hooked it all up, we could not get near enough volume to fill our 48' X 28' room. We asked the "specialist" at our local car audio store and he recommended going up to a 100W amp, and that should solve all of our problems. We now got decent volume when we put the mike right up close to our mouths, but our need is to have decent volume when the mike is 1 to 3 feet away from our mouths. This works just fine with our older 20W amp.
If there is a simple fix for this, could you help us out?
If not, could you recommend a setup that would work for our needs, which would be using a mike 1 to 3 feet away while still broadcasting decent to fairly loud volume to a 48' X 28' room? We are on a fairly tight budget, with our maximum being $300 CAN. If possible, we would like room for future expansion.
Thanks,
Jacob Marttinen
Answer -
Without knowing more of the exact equipment (make and model) I cannot give an intelligent reply. I can guess that the microphones you are using are low output and the old amp had high gain preamps for them. The microphones you use and the type of preamps will have a tremenduous effect on what the results will be.
You will never get a good sound reproduction with the microphone 3 feet away from the speakers mouth (without high tech assist).
48 by 28 is not a big room, but the acoustics of the walls, floor, ceiling will have big effect on the final result.
FOR: Budget sound systems the best is Radio Shack. They have a 40 w unit for about $100 that will do your job nicely. They have an upgrade model that is 250W for around $250. Both have sufficient inputs for almost any standard microphones.
NEXT: You should look at the microphones you are using; they may not be current stuff. Let me know the make and model and I can advise you what to do with them.
Next time, stay away from a car audio store for advice on PA sound! That is like going to a brain surgeon when your foot hurts! I am sure they are competent in auto sound, but hall public address requirements are totally different!
Please let me know further as you go along and I will give you sound (no pun intended) advice.
Cleggsan
Ok, here is the new amp we purchased. It's a 100W PA Amp with a Mike mixer. It's from The Source (which is Radio Shack in Canada), and product number 3212003.
http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Product.aspx?language=en-CA&catalog=Online&cat
I checked out the mikes and they have no brand name, no model numbers, no anything. I checked with the other members and they said just to buy all new mikes and new speakers, as we have already had to glue a few cracks in the (paper) speaker cone.
Which mikes should we get? We need at least two, but three would be nice. Would we also need some mike pre-amps? If so, which should we get?
And for speakers. The 48' X 28' room is about 15'-20' high. The walls have horrible acoustics, and the floors are hard wood. The ceiling is wood panelling, so overall, the room has terrible acoustics. We would like to get something that makes it easy to hear from everywhere in the room. All that is ever broadcasted in voice. Right now, we just have a single (unknown power) 8" speaker, and this has been sufficient with our older system, but we would also like a bit more volume. Any recommendations, for speaker size, speaker type, maybe even specific speakers?
If you need any more information, just ask and I will try to find it out.
Thanks again,
Jacob Marttinen
AnswerTHe amp is fine; it will do the job. It has both high and low inputs for the microphones. You should have plenty of gain if the microphones are working okey.
A projection system as I suggested in the last email is best for your environment. Two speakers near the front mounted on stands or up towards the ceiling. They must be in boxes with directionality towards the audience. The further away from the microphones you can get them the greater the acoustic gain before feedback.
One speaker is not enough; so you really need one on each side of the pulpit close to the walls and aimed into the audience.
Good Luck,
cleggsan
