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[John Rosborough]

I don't even know if this is a question that can be answer in this forum. But anyway, we are having a movie night in a few months, and someone ask me about bringing in a surround sound system for the movie.

I have never done this before; not sure it's even possible in a sanctuary.

The sanctuary is about 40 ft wide by 80 ft long. It hold about 125 seats. The projector screen will be placed about 25 ft from front wall along the length side. The nearest row of seats is about 8 ft from where the projector will be placed. This leaves about 50 ft to 60 ft of seating area by 40 ft wide, or 200 to 240 square feet. The Ceiling is about 12 ft high.

Now, is there equipment that can be purchased, or at least rented that can provide the 5.1, or 7.1 Surround Sound set up? Would these (5.1 or 7.1) be the right arrangement? Are surround sound speakers needed? ... In other words, what can anyone tell me regarding this?

-John

[Ryan C. Davis]

First off, it's 2000 to 2400 ft^2

Second, You've given no indication of what you already have in there for sound. If you have speakers in roughly the right locations and they are powered by discrete amp channels you could easily add a surround processor on the head end and make it surround sound. If not, I don't see any reason you couldn't pump it through in stereo and crank the subs for better effect. Trust me, people notice the bass more than the surround sound.

I guess it all boils down to what you want/ need for that room. Is surround sound a requirement? It all sounds a little vague so far...

[Brad Weber]

Getting surround sound in some form should not be that big a deal but having surround sound that creates the desired effect for all listeners is a bit more complicated in terms of equipment, system layout and system tuning.  In either case, unless you already have all the equipment it would seem likely to be a pretty significant investment in both equipment and effort for a single event.

[Jordan Wolf]

John,

 Does it have to be true surround sound, or are you looking to have sound coming out of all the speakers all the time?

We did a pseudo-surround setup for a live orchestra event about 4 years ago.  We used a Roland V-mix system to accomplish the panning.  The orchestra was performing Holst's "The Planets" and wanted to incorporate some sound effects and synchronized video playback.

The sound effects consisted of "random space noises" (a bunch of beeping and blips) that were panned around the room.  The installed LCR rig (yes, it was a true LCR system) was supplemented by rear and side powered loudspeakers that were routed from Aux outputs in the Roland unit.  A joystick was used to determine how much of what went where.

It went well and no one was any the wiser of the lack of true surround sound.

That being said, the big part is getting a decoder unit that will process and split everything correctly.  Following that, you'll need to define the coverage zones for each speaker set (remember, you want things noticeable, but not necessarily loud).

Let us know what you decide to do. :-)

EDIT - this is for sale in the Marketplace.  Explore it's features and see if it will work for your situation.  Then, add speakers/amps to taste.

[wilkinsdj]

    John, everyone who has posted has mentioned valuable information.
   Ryan mentioned the subs, which for movies that are mixed with a dedicated low frequency effects track (LEF) is a large part of the ambiance the producers wanted to create.  Note that the LEF is generally mixed for a system that has the subs' passband set significantly higher than the tops.
   Brad mentioned the difficulty in providing the desired effect to every seat.  Not everyone can be in the sweet spot and this has been the greatest disappoint for me when I've setup a surround movie night in a large outdoor courtyard.  We've done it 3 times in 5.1.  (courtyard seating area dimensions: 160ft x 160ft) Flying all the cabinets as high as my 25' lifts would allow to take advantage of the inverse square law still proved inadequate IMHO.
   Using a decoder for a 2.1 system can give excellent results.
   No one has mentioned the quality of your source.  I am guessing that you hope to use a Blu-Ray source.  Most surround sound effects seem rather minimal to me, so unless the movie has a great surround audio there is little to be gained.  Again, that's been my experience.
   I realize what you are probably dealing with are a few vocal individuals who think of home-theater as simple setting up three more cabinets and believe it isn't any different on a larger scale.  You may need to explain some physics and present some dollar figures that would be needed to get them out of their simplistic world.
Hope that helps.

[Bob L. Wilson]

I don't even know if this is a question that can be answer in this forum. But anyway, we are having a movie night in a few months, and someone ask me about bringing in a surround sound system for the movie.

I have never done this before; not sure it's even possible in a sanctuary.

The sanctuary is about 40 ft wide by 80 ft long. It hold about 125 seats. The projector screen will be placed about 25 ft from front wall along the length side. The nearest row of seats is about 8 ft from where the projector will be placed. This leaves about 50 ft to 60 ft of seating area by 40 ft wide, or 200 to 240 square feet. The Ceiling is about 12 ft high.

Now, is there equipment that can be purchased, or at least rented that can provide the 5.1, or 7.1 Surround Sound set up? Would these (5.1 or 7.1) be the right arrangement? Are surround sound speakers needed? ... In other words, what can anyone tell me regarding this?

-John

I have done this a few times in both our Sanctuary and our multipurpose room. If your existing system is a true LCR system with an aux driven subwoofer the only thing needed for 3.1 is a decoder/processor to go between your source and the console. The rear surrounds aspect is as complicated as you want to make it. I used 12 EV Evid 6.2 speakers, four across the rear of the room and four down each side, mainly because we already had them.  I used a Denon AVD-2000 stand alone decoder like this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/DENON-Precision-Audio-Component-Digital-Surround-Sound-Decoder-AVD-2000-/130703681011?pt=US_Radio_Tuners&hash=item1e6e8be5f3 again because I already had it from an old home theater setup.  The outputs from the decoder were plugged into six separate channels on our console with the Front Left, Center, Front Right and subwoofer being assigned to our existing Left, Center, Right, and subwoofer outputs. The surround channels were each assigned to their own aux ouput and then went out to three Crown Com-Tech 410 amps again because we had them in our surplus gear. First I adjusted the input levels of the amps driving the surrounds for the most even surround level throughout the house using a test signal from the decoder. I then used the Denons onboard setup menu to set all the levels. Once done I assigned the relevant outputs to a single VCA on the console. It worked fine in both rooms. This document http://www.jblpro.com/pub/cinema/cinedsgn.pdf from JBL is a good read on the subject. Surround selection and placement starts on page 32. If the existing sound system is not a true LCR system and/or you either don't use/can't configure for aux fed subs this will get complicated and expensive very fast.

[John Rosborough]

I guess it all boils down to what you want/ need for that room. Is surround sound a requirement? It all sounds a little vague so far...

Ryan it's not totally required to provide surround sound. But I'm the type of person that if my church provides the budget, I'd like to know as much as possible in order to provide/solve any audio needs.

I wasn't sure on what type of budget is required for a simple surround system (if there's even such one).

The current system at my church is a real vanilla system:

- 2 Peavey PV115 400 watt pgm loudspeaker
- 1 Behringer PMP3000 Power Mixer
- 2 dbx 231 Graphic EQ
- 2 JBL EON Power 10 speakers for monitor
- 1 Sony player/recorder

[John Rosborough]

In either case, unless you already have all the equipment it would seem likely to be a pretty significant investment in both equipment and effort for a single event.

Well we had the movie night already. I attended late, but learned someone brought their Bose System from home and just placed the speakers around the sanctuary.

Sometimes I get hung up on always providing sound needs for any function at my church. And the sound for this event was too bassy, and muffled.

I inquired about surround sound for future purposes; church members have decided they want to have more movie nights, and  I would like to provide a better setup for the next one.

But if a surround sound system carries a hefty price tag, it might be better to scrap this project and concentrate on other ones.


Thanks for the advice.

[John Rosborough]

Jordan, the information you supplied was great. I just wanted to thank you for it.


- John

[Jordan Wolf]

Jordan, the information you supplied was great. I just wanted to thank you for it.


- John

You're quite welcome, John.  Keep us updated on the progress of your project. 

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