Church
PA & Sound Systems
AVM are specialists in Church PA systems, Church Sound system installation, and Induction Loop Systems to comply with current disability discrimination legislation. We take care of design, supply, and installation.
AVM will design, supply, and install your church sound system for maximum audio intelligibility. AVM engineers have years of experience designing systems to suit small and large installations for all budgets. We offer free technical advice on equipment and church sound system design.
Church Sound System Intelligibility
The main reason for a church sound system being rendered unintelligible (assuming it is loud enough) is the deleterious effect of the acoustics of the building. Certain frequencies are naturally emphasized, others suppressed, leading to a significant loss of audio information. This, coupled with reverberation and echo can render even a loud sound unintelligible - think of a bright, but out of focus picture.
A well designed system can overcome the problems by specifying the correct equipment: microphones specifically suited to speech, equalizers which can be set to compensate for non-linear acoustics, and an even distribution of speakers at carefully chosen locations to minimize echo and delay effects.
A further problem can be achieving a sufficient level of amplification in the sound system before the onset of howling "feedback". This can be overcome by careful choice of microphones, siting of speakers and, in extreme cases, by the use of a dedicated digital processor to specifically detect the onset of feedback and instantly apply preventative measures - automatically.
Induction Loop Systems
A recent legal ruling obliges all publicly accessible facilities, including churches, to be fitted with an induction loop system for the benefit of hearing-aid users. These loops are connected to the PA system and radiate a magnetic field carrying the sound information which is picked up by hearing aids switched to the "T" position, giving much clearer reception of the required sounds while reducing the effects of background noise.
The system consists of a loop of wire (hence the name) around the perimeter of the building, connected to a special amplifier which is, in turn, connected to the system. Unfortunately, the magnetic field is also picked up very effectively by dynamic microphones and guitar pickups, leading to feedback. Use of condenser microphones, and careful layout of the loop can eliminate both of these undesirable effects.
Cabling and Wiring
In order to be able to use thin cable and minimize resistance losses, church audio systems work on the 100 volt line system, where the output of the amplifier is boosted to a higher level, and sent down a single cable pair, from which all the speakers are fed. Each speaker contains a transformer, which can be set to extract the required amount of power from the "line" - like a pre-set volume control. This offers the ability to "fine-tune" the level of each individual speaker to achieve the most even coverage.
Microphone cables should be of the "balanced" variety to minimize hum and interference pick up.