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Photo courtesy of Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL
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Photo courtesy of Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL
People tend to get nervous when purchasing technology where all the main system components are in one box. This has long been the main argument against powered loudspeakers: if the amp blows, you’re forced to remove the entire speaker (an operation that usually involves a lift) for repair.
Recently, Church Production surveyed several church techs to learn what their real-life experiences have been with active speaker technology. Our discovery? Amp failures aren’t such a big deal these days, there’s less to lug around in portable situations when the amp is built into the cabinet, and powered loudspeakers offer a number of other benefits that church techs can take advantage of. Here’s what they had to say.
They deliver feedback (in a good way)
Matt Wentz, audio systems engineer at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., recounts that the church has powered Meyer Sound loudspeaker systems in its main auditorium, as well as at a number of its regional campuses. He notes that the manufacturer’s Remote Monitoring System (RMS) that streamlines troubleshooting—a considerable advantage for techs managing many loudspeakers in a number of different locations.
“[Many powered loudspeakers] have some sort of monitoring system that gives you real-time feedback on what’s happening with the speaker, the components, the drivers, the amp itself, and maybe the fans if they’re in there,” he says. “That is one of the huge benefits of powered loudspeakers that have features like that, and you can get a lot more information than you would with a conventional speaker.” When a tech at a regional campus contacts Wentz with a loudspeaker issue, Wentz can call up all of the necessary information on his computer at Willow Creek’s main South Barrington location and troubleshoot over the phone.
They match
Dustin Whitt, multi-campus production director at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., notes that when putting together a conventional loudspeaker package, many times it’s up to the system designer to ensure that the loudspeakers and amplifiers work well together, especially if they’re made by different manufacturers. With powered loudspeakers, “you know that the amp is properly matched to the loudspeaker, and the processing as well,” he says. This keep things simple for operators—especially amateur or volunteer operators who may have limited experience running audio.
They can go the distance
Another benefit that Wentz highlights is that powered loudspeakers decrease cabling issues: “You’re just running either a network cable or audio lines to your destinations, and then you don’t have to worry about distance issues,” he says. “One thing with conventional speakers is you have to worry about your amp load to your speakers: is your cabling the right gauge? What is the distance from your amp to your speaker?” Because the speaker and the amp are housed in the same unit, powered loudspeakers eliminate these concerns.
This is one of the reasons that B.J. McGeever, media director at Faith Bible Church in The Woodlands, Texas, pretty much always selects powered loudspeakers when he’s renting or buying a system that needs to be mobile. “It’s way less hassle than having to deal with amplifiers,” he says. He admits that for a while, he ruled out powered loudspeakers, and he advises his counterparts across the country not to do the same. “I realized, ‘oh wait, this is going to make my life a lot easier.’ I don’t have to worry about cable distance and sending amplified signals over 150 feet. Not having to fight with that has made my life a lot easier.”
… but they do require power
Like any tech purchase, the procurement of powered loudspeakers should involve a cost analysis. In this case, one of the main things to examine is: if you’re going to use powered loudspeakers, how are you going to get power to them? “Instead of all your powered being in an amp room [which is generally how conventional speakers receive power], now you’re probably running it to a catwalk, or to a grid, so that has to be taken into account,” Wentz points out. He cites a small classroom at Willow Creek as an example: the space is outfitted with conventional speakers, simply because Wentz didn’t have the budget to hire an electrician to route power where he would have needed it for a powered loudspeaker system.
On the amp failure thing
Yes, amps blow up. And yes, when they’re built into a loudspeaker, you have to remove the whole speaker in order to make the repair. But …At Willow Creek, Wentz and his crew keep spare amp modules on hand so they can swap out broken parts on site. “It’s four screws and a couple of Phoenix connectors, and you can swap it out in about 15 minutes,” he says. “Now, it does get tricky when it’s in our big arrays in our main auditorium, because you’ve got to get a lift out. If the speakers are flown, there is a time-consuming piece to that, so I could definitely see that as being a negative. But if you know that you have spare parts and you know how to swap them out, it can be relatively easy.”
“[Many powered loudspeakers] have some sort of monitoring system that gives you real-time feedback on what’s happening with the speaker, the components, the drivers, the amp itself…. ”
Matt Wentz, Audio Systems Engineer, Willow Creek Community Church, IL.
Wentz relays that over the past five years, he has dealt with about a half-dozen amp failures in a 13 year-old system—a statistic that he seems quite comfortable with. One reason he believes that Willow Creek has been able to minimize failures for more than a decade is because the audio team leaves things running 24/7, which means that the components aren’t “shocked” by the in-rush of power that occurs when one powers up a system. “That wears on components. We’ve noticed that, in particular, the amp modules that fail most often are [in a system] that we move around a lot for special events. I’ve had to replace almost all of those over the last couple of years because we unplug them and plug them back in. It’s because we’re moving stuff; the speakers that are just sitting in the air we’ve rarely had to touch.” For Whitt, the amp failure argument has never held much weight. “Speaker drivers themselves have just as many issues as an amp, if not more at times, so not having an amp [in the speaker] doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to get up there, get to it, and take it down,” he says. If it’s a good quality speaker, these issues decrease, “but all speakers break at some point.”
Whatever you do, demo
Regardless of whether you’re considering a conventional PA or a powered loudspeaker system, Whitt urges churches to seek out manufacturers that are known for providing solid support. Above all, he encourages churches to demo the systems before they make a purchase—and under the right conditions. “Always, always, always demo the speaker, and don’t just demo it with a CD or music from your laptop,” Whitt counsels. “Always put live content through it, meaning a band, and someone on stage, talking.” He explains that speakers behave differently in a live setting vs. a playback environment. “I’ve seen it a lot where people go to a trade show, and they play their favorite song through it off of their phone and say, ‘That’s amazing! That’s the speaker I want.’ Well, that’s not what we do [in church]. We have live bands, which are much more dynamic, there are a lot more transients, and the speakers behave differently.”
Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor and a regular contributor to Church Production Magazine.
