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[Taylor Phillips]

Hello!  So, we replaced the floors in our nursery with some nice fake hardwood laminate after we fixed leak in the roof, and I think people are now jealous of the kids since their space is nicer than the sanctuary now.  If you recall, about a year ago I posted a question about how sound would be affected by a redesign of the sanctuary, and now that may be closer to becoming a reality thanks to people's awe at the improved condition of the children's space.  Our associate pastor (who's actually more senior than our main pastor who sees him as a mentor) asked me if I thought installing the laminate floors like we did in the nursery would have a detrimental affect on the sound.  I told him I couldn't be sure, but I'll ask the internet!  I also told him that if something's worth doing it's worth doing right, so we should really consider redesigning the space to maximize it, as it's not ideal at the moment, and he agreed.  The space is quite small, and my re-design is smaller - though I believe we can fit more people in it and it creates dedicated storage.  My original idea was to have a tile walkway along the side, and carpet where the seats are, but I guess it is probably cheaper to just go with one thing throughout. We also use the space for meals, so the hard floors would be easier cleanup.  I'll try to attach the relevant dimension etc., we have 52 padded chairs and regular attendance in the mid to high 30s.  Music style is contemporary, but not too loud - I've actually wished I had drum mics on a couple of occasions. 

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

With hard flooring the room will be more live when it is empty and about the same when everyone is inside so I doubt it will make a difference to the actual service but something like soundcheck might be chaos.

Other than that I don't think there is any detriment to a harder surface on the floor and would probably suck it up for the ease of cleaning in a multi-purpose venue.

Also for the love of all things good use paragraphs man.

[Tim Weaver]

What is on the floor now? If you have bare concrete you might be better off with laminate flooring. I sure wouldn't put tile in there anywhere.

[Taylor Phillips]

We currently have cheap, old, thin capret with no pad underneath.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[Mike Sokol]

We currently have cheap, old, thin capret with no pad underneath.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

One of the problems with thin carpet is that it tends to suck up highs, but doesn't do anything to absorb mid or low frequencies. So a room with a lot of carpet can sound "dark", especially if the carpet's on the floor which removes an early reflection path. So hard flooring rather than carpet flooring will sound "brighter" to begin with. Of course there's other considerations such as reverberation time and slap-back echoes. And you can control the bounce off the floor to some extent by careful speaker placement and pattern. For example, a lot of the churches in my area have a single speaker cluster mounted high in the ceiling and almost pointing straight down. The sound bounces off of any hardwood floor like crazy.

[Taylor Phillips]

One of the problems with thin carpet is that it tends to suck up highs, but doesn't do anything to absorb mid or low frequencies. So a room with a lot of carpet can sound "dark", especially if the carpet's on the floor which removes an early reflection path. So hard flooring rather than carpet flooring will sound "brighter" to begin with. Of course there's other considerations such as reverberation time and slap-back echoes. And you can control the bounce off the floor to some extent by careful speaker placement and pattern. For example, a lot of the churches in my area have a single speaker cluster mounted high in the ceiling and almost pointing straight down. The sound bounces off of any hardwood floor like crazy.

My idea is to have the speakers on shelves either side of the stage since that's the easiest way to get them above people's heads.  Angled in to keep the sound off of the walls, since I think that would be more detrimental to the sound that the comb filtering in the middle.  The front wall of the building is not perpendicular to the side walls, and thus not parallel to the proposed stage wall, so would that have a positive effect on things?

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

What if they fall? There is probably a correct way to rig those over someone's head, putting then on a shelf is almost certainly not it.

[Tim Weaver]

What if they fall? There is probably a correct way to rig those over someone's head, putting then on a shelf is almost certainly not it.

If that's what you've got then I'd say the shelf is the lesser of two evils. I would personally run some screws up into the speaker through the shelf. That will prevent it from sliding around. The real answer is to get speakers with rated hanging hardware. It's not that hard or expensive. Yamaha makes some very economical cabinets with hang points that actually sound pretty decent.

[Taylor Phillips]

What if they fall? There is probably a correct way to rig those over someone's head, putting then on a shelf is almost certainly not it.

I am far more confident about building a shelf to hold up a 38 pound speaker than I am about hanging it.  The most basic shelving components I've looked at are rated for 200lbs when installed correctly (i.e. mounted to studs) and go up from there. 

If that's what you've got then I'd say the shelf is the lesser of two evils. I would personally run some screws up into the speaker through the shelf. That will prevent it from sliding around. The real answer is to get speakers with rated hanging hardware. It's not that hard or expensive. Yamaha makes some very economical cabinets with hang points that actually sound pretty decent.

I've definitely considered ways to keep the speakers in place.  I don't believe it's in the best interest of the church to purchase new speakers at this point though, since what we have is (Klipsch KP-201) is actually quite good.  I've heard of people hanging these speakers, and ours do have a few holes drilled in the top that look like they could have served a purpose there. But the one document I've seen for them doesn't mention fly points.  The cabinet is made of 3/4" 9-ply plywood. 

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

My problem wasn't necessarily hanging but rather vibrating off the shelf, those are speakers after all.

If you have a way to secure them to the shelf then I suppose its ok.

[ProSoundWeb Community]