When is good enough, good enough? Do I really need to update/upgrade my 15 yr old sound system? The working life of a sound system can extend well beyond 20 yrs (I have seen systems 30-40 yrs old still in use). The question, begs a slew of additional questions:
1. Has your programming changed (added a keyboard, drums, bass……..)?
2. Have you added any additional seating, like additional rows of seats in the front or back?
3. Are you experiencing intermittent problems or shall we say, surprise noises?
4. Has the expectation of your congregation changed?
I am definitely not a person who promotes technology for the sake of technology. Allthough, I like to think of myself as “hip” and an early adopter. In fact I owned the original Palm Pilot, one of the first Windows Mobile PDA’s and a Palm Treo Pro phone (still my current phone) all purchased right when they were released. Oh yeah, I forgot the Apple Performa 405 PC I purchased in the early 90’s…. the iMac (purple), eMac, iMac G5 and now the Macbook pro….. Okay you get it, I love new technology and am not afraid to be one of the early one that jumps in, with some caution. I am usually not the first, but reside comfortably in the early pack that makes a purchase (I at least wait to see viability and stability of the item). You can note that the Apple Newton is not on the list, thankfully I held back on that purchase. As much as I am an early adopter also, note that missing from my list is the iPod, iPhone and I have no current plans to purchase an iPad. Why the pass on these items? Simple:
iPod- I love music but I have 5 kids, and shall we say no time to just listen. The only time I listen to music is when I get too worked up listening to talk radio in the car (alone) and need a blood pressure reducing break. As you can probably figure out, with 5 kids I am not alone in the car very often.
iPhone- I would LOVE ONE, but my company provided phone has to be windows based, thus the Palm Treo Pro. Also, with 5 kids moving towards college age and also involved in every sort of private lessons and extracurricular activity, I can’t afford to pay ATT a minimum of 49.99 a month. Plus my pay as you go Wal*mart special phone has kind of a retro, shall we say early millennial feel to it.
iPad- I don’t do enough personal mobile presentation style stuff to make it worth it. In fact, I rarely need a PC along with me for personal use. The kicker, even if I could justify it for work, the policy is no Macs, only Microsoft products supported here! The knockout punch, it is still way too early for me to jump in. I need to see that it is stable and viable (are people going to buy it?).
So what does my personal geekdom mixed with my Dutchness (frugal and practical, maybe even a bit cheap) have to do with upgrading your sound system? – Not much, other than show that I am not an anti-technology kind of guy.
Getting back to the issue at hand. I would like to introduce a fifth question.
5. What is the expectation of people that come and visit your church?
The human ear is a muscle and it gets leaner and meaner as it is exercised. Today our ears our exercised everywhere, from our car stereos to surround sound systems in our home, our ears get exposed to decent, quality sound all the time. The story below illustrates how our ears are muscles.
Between 1913 and 1920, the master showman Thomas Edison did more than 4000 “blind listening tests” to promote his Phonograph equipment and Diamond disc recordings. Edison would rent theatres and concert halls to do a comparison. He would hire some of the prominent musicians of the day and have them behind a curtain. The musician would sing a song and then a recording of it would be played on the Phonograph. Believe it or not the audience could not distinguish any difference between the two. In other words, they could not decipher if it was Live then Memorex or Memorex and then live (my apologies to RCA for the Memorex reference). If you are like me you have to be saying, hold on! people had to hear the difference between a scratchy, frequency limited recording and a live person. I guarantee if we took the exact same equipment and repeated the test; Today, the majority of people would easily be able to point out what was live and what was Memorex.
Other than almost 100 years, what is the difference? Reference! What did people in the early 1900’s have that they could compare the recording with? What was exercising their ears(other than the complaining neighbor)? Their ears were not yet trained to distinguish the difference.
Okay, by now I think you get the point. Reasons #4 and #5 are great reasons to update your system even if it is still in “working order”. So, how often should a system be updated? Taking out reasons #1, #2 and #3 (do it today if these reasons apply, you are overdue) my answer is; if the system is older than your car, it is time to update. That is my answer because our family drives a 1998 Suburban and two late 1990’s vehicles (remember that Dutch thingJ). Maybe a better answer is every time the second number in your age repeats (10 yrs for thoses not good with numbers and abstract concepts), it is time to look at upgrading.
