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[JamesJudson]

hey, I am trying to setup my speakers levels (SPL levels in my church). I am using an SPL meter app on IPad and trying to match the levels of mains and delays at the point of measurement ( which is deep into the audience at FOH). We have very bad acoustics and room treatment is not an option. I am setting up my mains to 85db SPL at front and measuring the amount of sound drop over the distance ( which is 79db with delay's turned off) and I turn off mains and firing delay's and setting them to be at 79db. It works just fine when I play music through the system but when pastor is talking there is no intelligibilty at the back. How do I need to setup my speakers levels so I don't excite room as much and also reduce the energy at the back so that energy reflected from the back wall is less and also having sufficient level of intelligiblity.

[Brian Jojade]

I don't understand why you'd set the level of the delays at the same level as the mains.  Wouldn't you want the delay speakers to be louder?  Otherwise, what's their point?  You're just adding more reflections at the same level.

[Ivan Beaver]

hey, I am trying to setup my speakers levels (SPL levels in my church). I am using an SPL meter app on IPad and trying to match the levels of mains and delays at the point of measurement ( which is deep into the audience at FOH). We have very bad acoustics and room treatment is not an option. I am setting up my mains to 85db SPL at front and measuring the amount of sound drop over the distance ( which is 79db with delay's turned off) and I turn off mains and firing delay's and setting them to be at 79db. It works just fine when I play music through the system but when pastor is talking there is no intelligibilty at the back. How do I need to setup my speakers levels so I don't excite room as much and also reduce the energy at the back so that energy reflected from the back wall is less and also having sufficient level of intelligiblity.

It is far from being as simple as SPL level.

Proper delay time, eq, xovers etc need to be matched (or in some cases properly mismatched-depending on particular circumstances)

In a bad room, adding more speakers is often the wrong thing to do, unless you are doing it properly, with proper measurements, understanding of patterns of control of the loudspeakers etc.

[Mike Caldwell]

You asked the same question about a week ago in the Church topic and got lots of answers already.

[JamesJudson]

You asked the same question about a week ago in the Church topic and got lots of answers already.

yeah but everyone's kept asking about my gear and no one told me the process of setting levels of mains and delays in relation to each other.

[JamesJudson]

I don't understand why you'd set the level of the delays at the same level as the mains.  Wouldn't you want the delay speakers to be louder?  Otherwise, what's their point?  You're just adding more reflections at the same level.

Maybe I don't know what I am doing, can you tell me how to do it properly.

[Brian Jojade]

Maybe I don't know what I am doing, can you tell me how to do it properly.

'Properly' depends on what exactly you are trying to achieve.

The most common reason to use delay speakers is to keep the volume the same from front to back of house.  If you're using them to combat reflections off of the back wall, that's a completely different scenario and won't be a simple answer.  In fact, it's possible that the delays can make things even worse.

Adjusting the position of delays to eliminate refection off the back wall means changing the relative path of sound in relation to the main source, and as such makes it impossible to match things up. Often times that makes things far worse.

[Tim McCulloch]

Maybe I don't know what I am doing, can you tell me how to do it properly.

Hi James, you're looking at something that is a portion of a larger beast.  Very Smart People write books about it and charge professional money to do the work on site.  And delay/under balcony/stalls coverage are not the first part of the design and optimizing process, so this is a jump into a mid-point of that process.

Brian Jojade's question about how loud delays should be is either mis-written or sarcasm, but where he's going with this is that the delays should be missed if they were turned off.  What "missed" might sound like depends on what the delay system is compensating for, and that brings us back to design of the primary system coverage (the start of the process) and what architectural, aesthetic, or other considerations keep the designer from covering the most area with the fewest loudspeaker deployments, for which the delay/under balc system is to 'fix.' 

The things Ivan Beaver brings up are the tools used by the System Optimizing Person to make the various fills, delays, under balc, etc work and play nice with whatever other coherent acoustic energy is sharing coverage area.  Did I mention people write books about this stuff?

So my question is "what are you using delay speakers to take care of, and where/how are they placed in the room?"

[Dave Garoutte]

First, you need to add delay to the delays.  The sound from the mains takes around 1.1 milliseconds per foot to get to the delays, which is when the delay should make that sound.  At that point, you want the delays to be LOUDER than the mains, or they won't be of any benefit.
When the timing is right, you won't hear the delays, but you'll notice when they are off.
Delays can be used to REDUCE the volume of the mains, which can help in a reverberant space.

[Mike Caldwell]

yeah but everyone's kept asking about my gear and no one told me the process of setting levels of mains and delays in relation to each other.

Myself along with a couple other people did.
You don't need any fancy SPL measuring equipment to get this working, set the delay time, you can measure it with a tape measure to get you to a good starting point, adjust the levels by listeing as we said earlier and Dave just posted.
Aim the delay speakers so they don't point directly at the back wall.

[ProSoundWeb Community]