"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Sage advice for a youngster learning to ride a bicycle, but difficult to swallow for a church with a $130,000 investment in an ineffective sound system. Such was the situation faced by officials at First United Methodist Church in Conroe, Texas. Their beautiful, newly constructed 1,200-seat facility came with an expensive, cumbersome, and utterly unintelligible "design-build" sound reinforcement system.

A trick of photography at the new sanctuary

"In another space, the system would have been fine," explained Bill Schuermann, senior project engineer at HFP Acoustical Consultants, Houston, Texas who the church called in to relieve their suffering. "However, First United Methodist is simply too large and too reflective to have 'no Q' loudspeakers suspended 50-feet above the sanctuary. Moreover, the installation of a small analog console meant the church sound engineers didn't have the tools to properly process channels nor any recall of program settings."

The Intelligibility Problem

Ignoring the problem of operability altogether, several consultants suggested remedying the intelligibility problem with acoustical treatment... lots and lots of acoustical treatment! However, the church didn't opt for marble floors and tasteful wall finishes so they could cover them with carpet and absorptive panels for more forgiving acoustical properties.

"The church considered some drastic solutions," said Doug Black, president of Core Systems, Houston, Texas. Core Systems was the contractor selected to install the HFP's new sound system design. When Black arrived on the scene, he found amplifiers pulled back to 10 percent of capacity. "They were practically turning off loudspeakers because they were creating so much reverberant energy."

To fix the intelligibility problem, Schuermann decided to replace the no-Q loudspeakers with the Meyer CQ1 and CQ2 powered loudspeakers, helping to shift the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio to a much more favorable degree. And, they were mounted much closer to the audience.

A more traditional photo, showing how two of the new loudspeakers have been flown much closer to the congregation.

To solve the operability problem, HFP replaced the limited 24-input analog console with an Innova SON Compact 32-input digital audio console. The Innova SON's in-line digital processing and instant recall memory brought the system's flexibility in line with the church's aspirations.

"Getting things up and running was a real challenge," Schuermann says. "We had to deliver the hard truth that we would have to remove their new $130,000 system, which wasn't an easy conversation to have. It's difficult enough for a church to get tithing, but to build a beautiful new facility only to find that your "design-build" sound system doesn't work... is sad. I'm glad we could solve their problems, but I feel sorry they had to suffer through 11 months of inadequate sound in the first place."