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Need advice on an indoor PA setup for lectures.
So, here is my situation. I’m looking for advice on a self contained sound system for our meetings. Currently, using a Sennheiser ew100 wireless system with an over the ear mic for the main speaker and two ew135 hand held wireless mics for the audience. The room is 30 feet by 50 feet with 13 foot high ceilings and is quite a reflective room (a few rugs are about the space).
I’m recording to a Zoom H6 and processing in Adobe Audition. That end is fine. But, the sound system for the room is where I need help.
I’ve tried a Vocorder karaoke machine and the in-house Bose Stereo speaker system. But, the sound quality is not refined enough. It is barely OK. It sounds like a cheap . . . well, karaoke machine!
Advice please!
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6 Replies
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It sounds (no pun intended) like your major problem is the room. If you have a rather reverberant space like that it is difficult to get intelligible reinforcement to the audience without bouncing around the room.
The proper way to do it would be two-prong:
1) Treat the acoustics of the room. Damp especially the reflections from parallel surfaces.
2) Use a speaker(s) which control the sound to hit the audience’s ears but NOT hit the walls, floor, or ceiling. Doing this in a fixed installation is rather challenging and often requires custom speaker system(s). Doing this in a portable application where you must troop the equipment in and out is extremely difficult.Using a headset mic on the presenter is brilliant. There is no better way of capturing the speech while minimizing the unfortunate ambient problems. However, using microphones in the audience area while also trying to reinforce the sound back into the audience area is just asking for trouble. Especially in such a small and reflecting space.
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Yes. The room is terrible but, it is what I have to work with. Would you or anyone else here be able to suggest a company that could be hired to configure an audio system for me? I am in the West Los Angeles area.
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It is not clear whether you are talking about a fixed installation or portable?
Do you (or your customer) control the space? Can they make improvements?
Is there a budget for this?
Certainly there are many acoustical consultants in the LA area who could help you. I would certainly recommend starting with the acoustics and THEN determining the best kind of speakers to get sound into that space. -
Thank you Richard for your response. I made an appointment with the guys at GuitarCenter and will meet at the house tomorrow in fact. Fingers crossed a good system can be put together.
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I am somewhat doubtful that you will find any acoustic consultants at Guitar Center. If they don’t recommend spending at least 30% of your budget on acoustic treatment, I would get a second opinion. You have primarily an acoustics problem, and only secondarily a speaker selection problem.
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Richard, of course the tech did not say anything about dampening the surfaces. Recommending I get the Sennheiser LP500. Rubbish. I’m hoping someone here on CreativeCow can give me lead to a consultant.
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