Turbosound installations

First Baptist Church

Venue: First Baptist Church
Location: Florida, USA
Venue-type: House of Worship
Loudspeaker system:
HiLight series
TCS series

Many houses of worship face the challenge of balancing architectural aesthetics with the practical considerations of installed sound systems. All too often, their sound systems can be compromised by fears that visually obtrusive audio gear - most notably loudspeakers - will spoil the clean, pure look of a church interior. Sound quality can frequently be sacrificed in the interests of preserving the look of an interior, to the extent that intelligibility falls well below the usable.

Audio system designers who specialise in houses of worship have a name for this fear: the "big black box" syndrome. Jim Stenson, senior designer with systems integrator All Pro Sound, based in Pensacola, Florida, knows the mindset all too well. His company handled two recent church projects and, in each one, a major component in solving the sound quality versus aesthetics dilemma proved to be a mix of Turbosound loudspeakers, including QLight™ and TCS models.

At First Baptist Church, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, All Pro Sound made a return visit, three years after installing a sound system that put aesthetics ahead of sound quality. Following an architect's mandate that the speakers must be hidden, the system proved to be inadequate. Similarly, at Village Baptist Church in nearby Destin, All Pro Sound finally got a chance to correct a system, which the company and the church knew was inadequate from the start, just in time for the church's one-year anniversary celebration.

The First Baptist project gave All Pro a chance to use Turbosound loudspeakers to get it right, as Jim Stenson commented:

"We knew there were some issues from the beginning, especially due to speaker placement. It got more frustrating for the church over time because a big part of the congregation couldn't hear or understand what was being said. In particular, no one wanted to sit in the outside seating sections."

Hidden behind gondolas in the ceiling, the church's loudspeakers did not provide sufficient coverage for the auditorium, which seats about 750 in a main floor and balcony area. Increasingly reliant on the musical instrumental elements of contemporary worship, as well as a 100-person choir and a pastor who needs to be heard, the church found the sound system was either not reaching some seating areas or was doing a poor job in areas it did cover. When All Pro Sound was called in, Stenson's immediate recommendation was to do away with the hidden-speaker layout in favour of an entirely new configuration.

After building an EASE model of the room, and inserting similar loudspeakers from three manufacturers in a bid to achieve the required +/- 4dB performance for the seating area, Stenson settled on a solution that employed five THL-811.3 speakers in an exploded cluster. He explained:

"On paper, the best performer was the THL-811, a trapezoidal mid-high device that has a precise coverage pattern in a small footprint enclosure, which blended in very nicely with the architecture. As expected, they performed extremely well in real life as well. It's a rather small box for what it can do, and using this low profile design allowed an extra 200 seats to be added to the congregation on the outside edges, without deploying large or unsightly enclosures."

Two other Turbosound loudspeaker models were part of the complement of speakers used to cover the auditorium. To cover the upper area of the balcony, which seats about 75, Stenson selected two TCS-40 passive, full-range, two-way speakers, while as under balcony fills, he specified three passive, two-way TCS-30 speakers.

For the Village Baptist project, All Pro Sound highlighted the Fort Walton project as an example of using Turbosound's designs to correct a serious coverage problem, as Stenson outlined:

"They lived with the system, which they were contractually bound to install in their new building for a year, knowing that it wouldn't perform. We sent them over to the Fort Walton church to look at that solution, and we were able to convince them that the only way to solve it was to bring speakers out into the open."

Tucked behind grill cloth in the ceiling, the original speakers were even less capable of providing coverage than those in the First Baptist Church, as the space had serious acoustical problems that further hampered the ability of the speakers to do their job. Tackling both the acoustical and the audio system problems at the same time, All Pro Sound installed acoustical panels and specified Turbosound loudspeakers as the new sound system's focal point. But for this project, Stenson went with TQ-440 enclosures as the components of the main exploded cluster.

Six of the three-way, bi-amped, full-range speakers were mounted in a cluster, about 26 feet above the front of the platform, to cover six seating areas on the main floor. In addition, Stenson installed three TQ-425 front-loaded, vented subwoofers. Mounted behind the platform façade, the subs are specifically engineered to extend the low frequency response of the companion TQ-440s.

"The contemporary nature of their worship style required a three-way enclosure capable of a higher sound pressure level," commented Stenson, and as in the Fort Walton job, he selected TCS-40s for the balcony fill areas, deploying 7 units to provide the necessary coverage. The entire loudspeaker solution has yielded a vastly improved audio environment: "They were having some serious coverage issues that were resulting in poor intelligibility, due to high-level late reflections, and were only able to understand about every third word in some of the areas!"

Thanks largely to Turbosound, those problems officially ended on the day the church marked its first anniversary. "The new system works well and they're tremendously happy with it," said Stenson. "This combination proved to be exactly what the owners were hoping for - clean, clear intelligible sound throughout the seating areas."

Now, Stenson can only hope that more churches, either plagued with an ill-designed sound system or contemplating a new installation, will re-assess the beauty-versus-function question. With Turbosound equipment at his disposal, Stenson is confident that he can convince church clients that the answer lies in bringing speakers into the open, and he concluded:

"I brought Turbosound into this company about four years ago, and in that time they've performed extremely well. Often, when we first mention them to audio-savvy clients they make a reference to Turbosound being more heavily geared to the touring market. But that touring market experience can be a good thing in the installed sound market as well. Turbosound speakers are well-behaved designs with good pattern control, plus they're great right out of the box. They don't require a lot of EQ-ing or tweaking because of the unique driver configuration. They're very easy to work with!"

	First Baptist Church

	Venue: First Baptist Church Location: Florida, USA Venue-type: House of Worship Loudspeaker system: HiLight series TCS series

	Many houses of worship face the challenge of balancing architectural aesthetics with the practical considerations of installed sound systems. All too often, their sound systems can be compromised by fears that visually obtrusive audio gear - most notably loudspeakers - will spoil the clean, pure look of a church interior. Sound quality can frequently be sacrificed in the interests of preserving the look of an interior, to the extent that intelligibility falls well below the usable. Audio system designers who specialise in houses of worship have a name for this fear: the "big black box" syndrome. Jim Stenson, senior designer with systems integrator All Pro Sound, based in Pensacola, Florida, knows the mindset all too well. His company handled two recent church projects and, in each one, a major component in solving the sound quality versus aesthetics dilemma proved to be a mix of Turbosound loudspeakers, including QLight™ and TCS models. At First Baptist Church, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, All Pro Sound made a return visit, three years after installing a sound system that put aesthetics ahead of sound quality. Following an architect's mandate that the speakers must be hidden, the system proved to be inadequate. Similarly, at Village Baptist Church in nearby Destin, All Pro Sound finally got a chance to correct a system, which the company and the church knew was inadequate from the start, just in time for the church's one-year anniversary celebration. The First Baptist project gave All Pro a chance to use Turbosound loudspeakers to get it right, as Jim Stenson commented: "We knew there were some issues from the beginning, especially due to speaker placement. It got more frustrating for the church over time because a big part of the congregation couldn't hear or understand what was being said. In particular, no one wanted to sit in the outside seating sections." Hidden behind gondolas in the ceiling, the church's loudspeakers did not provide sufficient coverage for the auditorium, which seats about 750 in a main floor and balcony area. Increasingly reliant on the musical instrumental elements of contemporary worship, as well as a 100-person choir and a pastor who needs to be heard, the church found the sound system was either not reaching some seating areas or was doing a poor job in areas it did cover. When All Pro Sound was called in, Stenson's immediate recommendation was to do away with the hidden-speaker layout in favour of an entirely new configuration. After building an EASE model of the room, and inserting similar loudspeakers from three manufacturers in a bid to achieve the required +/- 4dB performance for the seating area, Stenson settled on a solution that employed five THL-811.3 speakers in an exploded cluster. He explained: "On paper, the best performer was the THL-811, a trapezoidal mid-high device that has a precise coverage pattern in a small footprint enclosure, which blended in very nicely with the architecture. As expected, they performed extremely well in real life as well. It's a rather small box for what it can do, and using this low profile design allowed an extra 200 seats to be added to the congregation on the outside edges, without deploying large or unsightly enclosures." Two other Turbosound loudspeaker models were part of the complement of speakers used to cover the auditorium. To cover the upper area of the balcony, which seats about 75, Stenson selected two TCS-40 passive, full-range, two-way speakers, while as under balcony fills, he specified three passive, two-way TCS-30 speakers. For the Village Baptist project, All Pro Sound highlighted the Fort Walton project as an example of using Turbosound's designs to correct a serious coverage problem, as Stenson outlined: "They lived with the system, which they were contractually bound to install in their new building for a year, knowing that it wouldn't perform. We sent them over to the Fort Walton church to look at that solution, and we were able to convince them that the only way to solve it was to bring speakers out into the open." Tucked behind grill cloth in the ceiling, the original speakers were even less capable of providing coverage than those in the First Baptist Church, as the space had serious acoustical problems that further hampered the ability of the speakers to do their job. Tackling both the acoustical and the audio system problems at the same time, All Pro Sound installed acoustical panels and specified Turbosound loudspeakers as the new sound system's focal point. But for this project, Stenson went with TQ-440 enclosures as the components of the main exploded cluster. Six of the three-way, bi-amped, full-range speakers were mounted in a cluster, about 26 feet above the front of the platform, to cover six seating areas on the main floor. In addition, Stenson installed three TQ-425 front-loaded, vented subwoofers. Mounted behind the platform façade, the subs are specifically engineered to extend the low frequency response of the companion TQ-440s. "The contemporary nature of their worship style required a three-way enclosure capable of a higher sound pressure level," commented Stenson, and as in the Fort Walton job, he selected TCS-40s for the balcony fill areas, deploying 7 units to provide the necessary coverage. The entire loudspeaker solution has yielded a vastly improved audio environment: "They were having some serious coverage issues that were resulting in poor intelligibility, due to high-level late reflections, and were only able to understand about every third word in some of the areas!" Thanks largely to Turbosound, those problems officially ended on the day the church marked its first anniversary. "The new system works well and they're tremendously happy with it," said Stenson. "This combination proved to be exactly what the owners were hoping for - clean, clear intelligible sound throughout the seating areas." Now, Stenson can only hope that more churches, either plagued with an ill-designed sound system or contemplating a new installation, will re-assess the beauty-versus-function question. With Turbosound equipment at his disposal, Stenson is confident that he can convince church clients that the answer lies in bringing speakers into the open, and he concluded: "I brought Turbosound into this company about four years ago, and in that time they've performed extremely well. Often, when we first mention them to audio-savvy clients they make a reference to Turbosound being more heavily geared to the touring market. But that touring market experience can be a good thing in the installed sound market as well. Turbosound speakers are well-behaved designs with good pattern control, plus they're great right out of the box. They don't require a lot of EQ-ing or tweaking because of the unique driver configuration. They're very easy to work with!"