Sound Systems as Problem Solvers

Well-designed sound systems can help overcome
acoustic problems and enhance the worship experience.
To work well, they must work hand-in-hand with
room acoustics. They are used in churches in three
basic ways.
1. Sound systems make sound louder, so that a weak
voice or musical instrument can fill the church without
great effort. They can reach into distance seating
areas such as those in and under balconies where
worshippers would otherwise feel isolated or have
difficulty hearing.
2. Sound systems can provide speech intelligibility in
spaces that would otherwise be too reverberant. The
right kind of sound systems can eliminate the acoustic
conflict between music and speech by bringing
amplified speech more directly to the listener
without allowing it to bounce around the walls of the
worship space in an uncontrolled way. The church is
still reverberant; its acoustics can support traditional
church music that demand reverberation. The sound
system provides an additional means of controlling
the sound. Music which needs reverberation does
not utilize the sound system, taking advantage of the
acoustics of the room.
3. Sound systems can sometimes allow contemporary
music to be effective in an environment than would
otherwise be too reverberant. They do this in the
same way that they control speech — by controlling
the amplified sound, carefully focusing it on listeners
rather than allowing it to be turned into reverberation
by the acoustics of the space. Sound systems
that will be used for contemporary music need to
be capable of providing the naturalness, impact and
dynamics the form requires.