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[born to be mild]

Hi everyone;
    I'd like your opinion on cabinet placement for a small sanctuary with a low rise ceiling.  
    As you can see from the enclosed jpg, the side walls are 10' high, the cailing centerline is 12' high.  With a two-foot stage, there isn't a whole lot of room to hang cabinets in the center.
    The sanctuary itself is 60' long by 42' wide, and seats about 190.  Currently the speakers are 12" Ramsa cabinets up on stands about 7' high, with matching subwoofers on the floor.  The current location is to the far right and far left.  They're not shown in the picture because they're at about the 2nd row of chairs, right up against the 2nd row of chairs.
    Any thoughts?  Our equipment is all good, but the speakers just don't have enough oomph.  The church is looking at larger cabinets, but it occurred to me that "larger" won't do much if the placement isn't fixed.
    Thanks!

[Tom Young]

This space and seating arrangement may very well be a good candidate for a passive column ldspkr system such as the Bose MA12 with MB4 bass modules.

You should hire a consultant to design such a system and then optimize it once it has been installed.

[born to be mild]

Thanks, Tom.

And we do plan to bring in a consultant in, starting with some initial guidance about our current system and and then building from there.

I was a bit surprised to see your listing of the Bose MA12 as a possibility... if you could expound I'd love to hear it.  My surprise came from the standpoint of having viewed this board for awhile. and there haven't been a plethora of positive comments about Bose, especially once their Personal Amplification System came out.  I can't quite tell if people are critical of a specific product, or the company, or just the idea of Bose taking a different approach.

[Al Limberg]

I think what your seeing here regarding a dislike for Bose is often a case of the company developing a product that has a very specific usefulness then handing it over to a marketing department that has a tendency to see everything as the greatest thing since sliced bread.  In addition, alot of old timers witnessed large numbers of Bose speakers used in totally absurd situations.  It's scary how many musos bought a pair of 802s and then tried to power them with something like a PV XR600 or Yamaha EM150, typically W/O the Bose EQ. In my college days, a huge club sitting just off the edge of a 45,000 person campus installed a house system with 8 of the original hi-fi 902s (I think thats the model) driven by a pair of Phase Linear power amps.  In a club with seating for 6-800 people it was akin to taking a leak in the ocean and then measuring to see how much the water level came up!  Having said all that, in the proper application (and Tom's THE man around here when it comes to that) they can produce very acceptable results at a competitive price and in a manner that fits the aesthetics of the venue.

HTH,
Al

[Tom Young]

"And we do plan to bring in a consultant in, starting with some initial guidance about our current system and and then building from there."

Great.  Don't rule out long distance consulting, which is a pretty popular way for churches around the country to obtain the expertise of specialists (like myself, and whom are few and far between) and minimize travel, which can obviously add up to considerable money.  When you're ready, feel free to contact me.

"I was a bit surprised to see your listing of the Bose MA12 as a possibility... if you could expound I'd love to hear it. My surprise came from the standpoint of having viewed this board for awhile. and there haven't been a plethora of positive comments about Bose, especially once their Personal Amplification System came out. I can't quite tell if people are critical of a specific product, or the company, or just the idea of Bose taking a different approach."

Bose has a long and checkered history of dissing the pro audio community and specifically consultants, who they have always felt didn't "understand" their products and that was why we did not specify Bose as often as Bose felt they deserved to be specified.  The corporate personality of Bose is such that when things don't go their way they can get pretty ugly.  I have had 3 concert hall projects "attacked" by Bose who came in the back door and attempted to get their stuff in with (among other things) falsified modeling data. They managed to get "all the way" with only one project and that was by giving the owners a sweetheart price.  This same tactic was attempted on a number of other consultants' projects, so I never really took it personally. I just was offended that they 1) caused my clients to worry about how things would turn out, and 2) assumed I didn't know what I was doing and 3) they did not have appropriate ldspkrs for those spaces.  

Bose also is almost always suing other manufacturers for the faintest hint at patent and/or trademark infringement and even went so far as to sue a reviewer in a HiFi magazine for writing a critical piece.

Their Personal Amplification System marketing scheme is simply a gross overstatement of the performance characteristics of a column ldspkr mixed with a rather cynical attitude towards live sound folks and targeted at gullible musos who would like nothing more than to minimize their equipment costs, equipment packaging size and its operational complexities.  We consultants are only really concerned that churches will buy into this, frankly.

Despite all of that, I am obligated to use/specify Bose when and if their products do the job.  I have no problem with this.  The MA12 (which is the same ldspkr as is used in the PAS, BTW) is an amazingly effective "low-tech" ldspkr system that provides very useful behavior for some projects and/or spaces.  They also happen to be reasonably priced.

I say "low tech" because while everyone else has been designing elaborate passive and active column ldspkrs with frequency shading and steerable beams, Bose simply developed a very good 2.2" driver to employ in a cloumn (with no fancy processing) and when applied correctly they work very well.

However, they should NOT be positioned behind the microphones, they cannot be used as both monitors and FOH ldspkrs and they most certainly can cause more harm than good in many spaces. Just like any other ldspkr.

I have used MA12 arrays in several church projects now and the results have been very good.  I also use more expensive steerable line arrays (columns) and other types of ldspkrs when these are merited.

[Tim Padrick]

On several occasions I've worked a not dissimilar room that has stacked MA12s per side.  It's a passable syetem.  But I'd recommend http://www.slsloudspeakers.com/LS8695%20Line%20Array.htm instead.  Put them against the side walls just forward of the stage, and you will cover every seat very nicely.  ( http://www.padrick.net/LiveSound/SLS/LS8695.htm )

[Tom Young]

"On several occasions I've worked a not dissimilar room that has stacked MA12s per side. It's a passable syetem. But I'd recommend http://www.slsloudspeakers.com/LS8695%20Line%20Array.htm instead."

I respect your opinion but ask that you explain why you recommend the SLS system.

When you say "Put them against the side walls just forward of the stage, and you will cover every seat very nicely" how does this differ from how MA12's would be positioned ? How does the SLS system differ in the coverage that they provide ?

I am aware of the SLS product line and their contributions to ribbon driver development and line arrays.  They cost more than the Bose, do they not ?  That's not an indictment, but I would appreciate more details so that the folks here AND I can understand where your coming from and then make an informed decision.

[Tim Padrick]

I agree that in his room the placement would be about the same for the SLS and the Bose (but a bit differently than his current ones are placed if I read his post rightly).

I've been using the SLS for about two years.  I have used them in a wide variety of rooms, and in only one did they not markedly out-perform the Bose install (but I expect that in the room in question, the Bose would not have fared well either).

SLS are better driven than the Bose system I have mixed on (better console, better amps, short speaker cables, much better subs), so the comparison is not completely fair.  Hopefully you can listen to both and see what you think.  (My review of the SLS is the second link in my previous post.)

A slightlty lesser cost option would be http://www.ribbonloudspeakers.com/_wsn/page2.html

[ProSoundWeb Community]