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[Stephen Swaffer]

So I think I understand the situation, but I am curious how to explain what is happening-and my apologies for a bit of a rant against people being granted the "engineer" title because they are sales engineers.

My pastor just told me that a sales engineer (whom I like and at least used to respect) told him that we simply had to go powered speakers, and that what we reall needed was Bose F1 Line Arrays-in fact 3 of them at 1000 watts each.

Our auditorium is about 100 feet wide and 80 feet front to back.  Vaulted ceiling runs left to right, ceiling is embossed tin aprox 32 feet at peak and 15' at side walls.  Walls are plaster backed by 18" of brick, back wall is solid wood roll up doors about 40 feet wide by 15 ft tall-they open on an overflow area with fill speakers.  The last significant remodel this building had (at least acoustically speaking) was 1910 or so (building dates to 1865).  Our church has owned it for 40 years-we did add padding to pews and carpet.  We currently use a biamped center cluster with 2 EV horns that are fairly well directed towards pews and an EV cabinet powered by a Crown XLS1500 (I think?not 100% sure of size).

He thinks going to something like this will give a "crisp" sound.  I am thinking because of modern auditoriums that he has visited that are acoustically dead.

I think what he is hearing/not liking is natural room reflections-not speaker issues.  We have talked about getting the system tuned-and I would rather spend the money to have someone come in than to buy the Bose.

The Bose are rated at 100 degrees coverage-how would you ever deploy them to cover 180 deg (engineer??).  1000 watts each-yet 200 watts input power (energy crisis solved!)  They EQ themselves (no matter the room you install them in?). I know power speakers have there place-but are we outdated (as the "engineer" claimed just because we are using passive?  I know the "engineer" has never been in our building and probably never seen pics-yet he works for a highly regarded midwest outfit that I have spoken highly of quite often.

How do I explain why the sound is not "crisp" to a musically savy, sharp eared person that is convinced we can fix anything with technology?

[Ivan Beaver]

The problem with powered speakers in most installs (especially when flown) is getting to them to replace the amps when they fail.

I would much rather have them in a rack where they are much easier to swap around.

Also getting the power to flown speakers is often an expense that people forget. Until it is to late to "call it off".

[John L Nobile]

Also getting the power to flown speakers is often an expense that people forget. Until it is to late to "call it off".

You could just run orange extension cords up to them. Add some colour to the building.

Good point Ivan. Having to run power neatly to flown speakers in an old building would probably be a huge expense.

Hope you're able to get a few more quotes for your room. I assume the guy suggesting Bose is also a dealer and has a few boxes in stock gathering dust.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

So I think I understand the situation, but I am curious how to explain what is happening-and my apologies for a bit of a rant against people being granted the "engineer" title because they are sales engineers.

My pastor just told me that a sales engineer (whom I like and at least used to respect) told him that we simply had to go powered speakers, and that what we reall needed was Bose F1 Line Arrays-in fact 3 of them at 1000 watts each.

Our auditorium is about 100 feet wide and 80 feet front to back.  Vaulted ceiling runs left to right, ceiling is embossed tin aprox 32 feet at peak and 15' at side walls.  Walls are plaster backed by 18" of brick, back wall is solid wood roll up doors about 40 feet wide by 15 ft tall-they open on an overflow area with fill speakers.  The last significant remodel this building had (at least acoustically speaking) was 1910 or so (building dates to 1865).  Our church has owned it for 40 years-we did add padding to pews and carpet.  We currently use a biamped center cluster with 2 EV horns that are fairly well directed towards pews and an EV cabinet powered by a Crown XLS1500 (I think?not 100% sure of size).

He thinks going to something like this will give a "crisp" sound.  I am thinking because of modern auditoriums that he has visited that are acoustically dead.

I think what he is hearing/not liking is natural room reflections-not speaker issues.  We have talked about getting the system tuned-and I would rather spend the money to have someone come in than to buy the Bose.

The Bose are rated at 100 degrees coverage-how would you ever deploy them to cover 180 deg (engineer??).  1000 watts each-yet 200 watts input power (energy crisis solved!)  They EQ themselves (no matter the room you install them in?). I know power speakers have there place-but are we outdated (as the "engineer" claimed just because we are using passive?  I know the "engineer" has never been in our building and probably never seen pics-yet he works for a highly regarded midwest outfit that I have spoken highly of quite often.

How do I explain why the sound is not "crisp" to a musically savy, sharp eared person that is convinced we can fix anything with technology?

Ask your "sales engineer" to arrange a demo and prove the proposed solution will solve the problem. 

Combating room liveness is done by increasing speaker pattern control so the sound falls on the people and not on the walls/ceiling, and making those walls/ceiling less efficient at reflecting that sound back at you.  The Bose F1 will do neither, and is an expensive, glorified speaker on a stick.

RE input power vs. output power - musical crest factor and amplifier energy storage covers that discrepancy.  Every amp made puts out more instantaneous power than its average draw, so as much as the Bose is full of snake oil, the power side of things is probably legit, not that that means anything to what your room sounds like.

You can probably make some headway with a different set of speakers with better pattern control, maybe tweaking placement so they are closer to your audience, and reducing stage volume (a pretty big deal), but the majority of the situation comes from your architecture, and it sounds like changing that would radically alter what your room looks like.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

The problem with powered speakers in most installs (especially when flown) is getting to them to replace the amps when they fail.

I would much rather have them in a rack where they are much easier to swap around.

Also getting the power to flown speakers is often an expense that people forget. Until it is to late to "call it off".

A modern pair of powered speakers like the JBL SRX812P can be a pretty decent solution for those with limited budgets as they sound good out of the box, are low-cost, and have built-in flyware; however the aforementioned points are relevant - you need to get hardwired power to them, have some means of switching that power, and have easy enough access that they can be serviced without major disruption and expense.  You also need to like whatever pattern the box in question has.

For everything else, there's Danley. 

[Stephen Swaffer]

A modern pair of powered speakers like the JBL SRX812P can be a pretty decent solution for those with limited budgets as they sound good out of the box, are low-cost, and have built-in flyware; however the aforementioned points are relevant - you need to get hardwired power to them, have some means of switching that power, and have easy enough access that they can be serviced without major disruption and expense.  You also need to like whatever pattern the box in question has.

For everything else, there's Danley. 

I already mentioned Danley .  To anyone not following professional sound Danley is a no name and Bose is where its at-and this (mainly mail order) dealer doesn't sell Danley-so why would he recomend them?

Is a powered speaker-given the factory tuned processing for that speaker-signifcantly better than a passive speaker in an install.  Assuming the system is professionally tuned?  I have done the best I can with this system and I know the room-but I'll be the last one to claim it is professionally tuned.  For less money than the 3 Bose speakers I can have a professional tune the system-but that is seen as less of an investment than buying something new and shiney.

I would love to find a way to do a blind A-B-C demo.

[Justin Bartlett]

So I think I understand the situation, but I am curious how to explain what is happening-and my apologies for a bit of a rant against people being granted the "engineer" title because they are sales engineers.

My pastor just told me that a sales engineer (whom I like and at least used to respect) told him that we simply had to go powered speakers, and that what we reall needed was Bose F1 Line Arrays-in fact 3 of them at 1000 watts each.

Our auditorium is about 100 feet wide and 80 feet front to back.  Vaulted ceiling runs left to right, ceiling is embossed tin aprox 32 feet at peak and 15' at side walls.  Walls are plaster backed by 18" of brick, back wall is solid wood roll up doors about 40 feet wide by 15 ft tall-they open on an overflow area with fill speakers.  The last significant remodel this building had (at least acoustically speaking) was 1910 or so (building dates to 1865).  Our church has owned it for 40 years-we did add padding to pews and carpet.  We currently use a biamped center cluster with 2 EV horns that are fairly well directed towards pews and an EV cabinet powered by a Crown XLS1500 (I think?not 100% sure of size).

He thinks going to something like this will give a "crisp" sound.  I am thinking because of modern auditoriums that he has visited that are acoustically dead.

I think what he is hearing/not liking is natural room reflections-not speaker issues.  We have talked about getting the system tuned-and I would rather spend the money to have someone come in than to buy the Bose.

The Bose are rated at 100 degrees coverage-how would you ever deploy them to cover 180 deg (engineer??).  1000 watts each-yet 200 watts input power (energy crisis solved!)  They EQ themselves (no matter the room you install them in?). I know power speakers have there place-but are we outdated (as the "engineer" claimed just because we are using passive?  I know the "engineer" has never been in our building and probably never seen pics-yet he works for a highly regarded midwest outfit that I have spoken highly of quite often.

How do I explain why the sound is not "crisp" to a musically savy, sharp eared person that is convinced we can fix anything with technology?

I'm not (quite) going to say that Bose products have no legitimate place in pro audio, but this "sales engineer" sounds like one of a breed I know all too well:  he thinks you need Bose because Bose is what he sells.  This breed cares nothing for your actual needs and nothing for the actual results; he cares only about selling you some Bose speakers.  Don't walk away from him: run away from him.  You will not get a good result from this person, whether you follow his recommendations or not, because he is not aiming for a good result for you.  He's aiming for a sale, nothing more, nothing less.

Not everyone who works with Bose treats people this way, but there are an awful lot of similar stories; few of them end well.

[Lee Douglas]

Ask him, or better yet those that are listening to him, to back up his recommendations with documentation and room predictions using your venue as the model.  Then be ready with another proposal from another vendor that has that documentation.  Then dig up that write up about why churches need to buy their audio systems three times and distribute that amongst those that would waste the congregations money.

[Chris Penny]

Apart from the already identified issues with running power, from my quick look the Bose F1 system looks like it was designed as a replacement/ alternative for speaker on stick set-ups, rather a system for an an install environment. Assuming we are talking Bose, for an install environment (especially one with challenging acoustics) I would have thought the room or show match line would be a better choice? As others have noted going away from Bose there are plenty more, and most likely better alternatives out there.  The key thing here is you want whatever system you end up with to be properly designed and tested taking into your room requirements.  Just going with what a "sales engineer" is trying to sell this week is probably not good stewardship of your churches resources (as suggested find that three systems article).

[Lee Douglas]

Let me save you a search:

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/3Times.pdf

[ProSoundWeb Community]