Help choosing loudspeakers for 2500 Square feet hall

K

keychain

Audiophyte
I am planning to buy 12" 125w x 4 nos. active loudspeakers for a hall size of 2500 sq. ft. and close to 100 persons to gather. I will be placing the speakers wall mounted on the sides of the hall, 2 on the front and 2 at the rear.

Will this be sufficient? Please help me out before I buy
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I am planning to buy 12" 125w x 4 nos. active loudspeakers for a hall size of 2500 sq. ft. and close to 100 persons to gather. I will be placing the speakers wall mounted on the sides of the hall, 2 on the front and 2 at the rear.

Will this be sufficient? Please help me out before I buy
That is probably not a good way to go about it. You will have a lot of time smear doing that.

What is the purpose of the hall, music, PA, live production? We need a lot more information. That sounds like a pro installation job. What is crucial in large spaces, is not only the power, but more crucially the efficiency of the speakers.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Yes definitely more details needed. 12" 125w nos doesn't mean much....what specific make/model? What other gear are you using? Why two speakers at each end particularly? Square footage is one thing, but actual dimensions including height might be more useful.
 
K

keychain

Audiophyte
It's a place of gathering for worship and sermon.
We will use a keyboard, percussion pad and 5 microphones connected to a 8 channel mixer.

Based on reading some articles I narrowed it to 12" 125w speakers. I am yet to decide on the make / model. The dimension of the hall will be 60Lx40Bx15H in feet.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
It's a place of gathering for worship and sermon.
We will use a keyboard, percussion pad and 5 microphones connected to a 8 channel mixer.

Based on reading some articles I narrowed it to 12" 125w speakers. I am yet to decide on the make / model. The dimension of the hall will be 60Lx40Bx15H in feet.
Do not put the speakers round the room. Keep them all p front. For PA work, you always use mono, otherwise feedback is atrocious.

In you situation, I would use just one speaker, up fairly high. I two way you be best, with a largish woofer and a cellular sectoral horn with wide dispersion.
Start with one, and if you have to, add speakers at the sides. Suspend speakers from the ceiling. Do not hang them from walls.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
It's a place of gathering for worship and sermon.
We will use a keyboard, percussion pad and 5 microphones connected to a 8 channel mixer.

Based on reading some articles I narrowed it to 12" 125w speakers. I am yet to decide on the make / model. The dimension of the hall will be 60Lx40Bx15H in feet.
Will this be used on a recurring basis? If so, I would suggest hiring a sound company so you can rent a system and have them set it up for the first time- that way, it should work as planned if they know what they're doing and you won't be on the hook if it doesn't. In the long run, it would save headaches, financial loss and frustration because this isn't a typical application of making things loud and not caring as much if speech is intelligible.

Describe the interior of the space- are all of the walls flat with no bumps or small outcroppings, is the ceiling flat, slanted and is it supported by trusses or large beams? What surfaces- carpeted floor, or tile/wood? What about the walls- are they very smooth, or does the building have small columns at regular intervals?

For speech, the requirements are different from what's needed for music, partially because the sound level isn't as high- this falls under the category of 'House of Worship' sound systems, which you can look into online and it's a big part of commercial sound contracting.

Where are you located?

The first link shows large installations and they don't apply to your needs, but the information and details do- it will also give you information to mull over and some of that will be good for clues as to what you need to look for.


The second link is for a manufacturer of audio equipment that's used extensively in this area- you might contact them for help in selecting equipment.


Don't overthink this, but don't underthink it, either. You need to define the needs-

- High sound levels, or more moderate?
- Who will operate the system? Do they have experience with this, or will it be operated by various people with different levels of knowledge about how it works and how it should sound?
- Will the system need to be expanded at any time? It might be better to buy a mixer with more channels now, rather than find out that you need more without time to address the problem.
- The world has changed greatly in recent years- it's no longer necessary to use a huge mixer with a sea of knobs and sliders- a decent mixer that uses a laptop/desktop computer or tablet for control is now available for a very affordable price and the best part is that the controls won't need to be cleaned or maintained.

Here's a 12 channel mixer from SoundCraft- I used one of their non-IP models in 2018 for a school gym and it fit their needs nicely. The videos might be more technical, but they give you something to chew on-

 
K

keychain

Audiophyte
Do not put the speakers round the room. Keep them all p front. For PA work, you always use mono, otherwise feedback is atrocious.

In you situation, I would use just one speaker, up fairly high. I two way you be best, with a largish woofer and a cellular sectoral horn with wide dispersion.
Start with one, and if you have to, add speakers at the sides. Suspend speakers from the ceiling. Do not hang them from walls.
Could you please suggest that one speaker model? In next sentence about 2 way, I couldn't get what you meant to say. Could you be a bit more specific and elaborate with models and examples.

Adding speakers to the sides? You mean in addition to the one in ceiling.

And yes, it's recurring and should be fixed.
 
K

keychain

Audiophyte
@highfigh
The sides of the walls are plain. Floor will be marble and ceiling has columns at intervals.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Could you please suggest that one speaker model? In next sentence about 2 way, I couldn't get what you meant to say. Could you be a bit more specific and elaborate with models and examples.

Adding speakers to the sides? You mean in addition to the one in ceiling.

And yes, it's recurring and should be fixed.
You are doing a commercial/church installation. This is a home AV forum. That is a totally different arena to the commercial PA/sound reinforcement world.

Only three of us have any experience at all in that world. I have not done a church, hall or arena sound system in years. The other two, of whom H-Fi is one, is an active commercial installer, but mainly home theater, I think.

My own observation of your problem is that many approach this complex engineering problem without expert professional advice, and the results are usually dismal.

Designing your installation long range on a home forum is highly unlikely to provide you with the correct advice.

So money spent with a professional designer/installer with experience of working with houses of worship will be money well spent.

I for one certainly have no inclination, to put in the heavy lifting to design and spec. you a system free and gratis. I doubt anyone else is either, at least anyone who really understands the problems involved.

If you seek advice about your design, and installation on a forum like this, you are almost certain to get very bad advice.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
@highfigh
The sides of the walls are plain. Floor will be marble and ceiling has columns at intervals.
Yeah, that's a good formula for bad sound unless the room will have enough people to block the sound reaching the floor. The speakers will need to be angled downward, to limit the sound reaching the walls directly. This room will need acoustic treatment- contact GIK Acoustics for help.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Could you please suggest that one speaker model? In next sentence about 2 way, I couldn't get what you meant to say. Could you be a bit more specific and elaborate with models and examples.

Adding speakers to the sides? You mean in addition to the one in ceiling.

And yes, it's recurring and should be fixed.
Based on what we know, there's no way to make a recommendation for any speaker- too many unknowns.

Since you mentioned it, describe the ceiling- if it's just flat and smooth, it will need treatment for minimizing the sound reflections.

Go into the room and clap your hands- you'll be amazed by how long the sound reverberates and that's where the people will have problems- delays cause difficulty in understanding speech.
 

Latest posts

newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top