The great PA experiment

Ever since we purchased our last rig at Kensington a few years ago for the opening of our West campus, our vendor has suggested we should bring it in to the Troy main campus and see how it would perform in a larger space.  This past week I finally made that happen.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know the current PA rig at the main campus is tired at best.  We went through an exhaustive design process last year to plan for an expansion and upgrade to the campus but due to the current economic realities of our area, those dreams have been on hold indefinitely since late last year.  On top of this, we’ve been especially struggling lately with questions of volume and volume quality as it relates to everything we do in the room.  This test provided a unique opportunity to evaluate how a more ideal speaker solution would effect the audio experience.

The test PA in question was a L’Acoustics Kiva/Kilo/SB118 rig.  6 Kivas & 2 Kilos per side, 2 SB118s on the ground per side.

I hung the PA on Sunday afternoon as a part of the stage turn from the weekend to midweek.  On Tuesday morning we connected everything up and sent signal through for the first time.  One important part of this test was to keep our current rig completely intact so we could simply A/B between the two different systems.

The long and short of it, as to be expected, is that the Kiva/Kilo system was like listening to a set of nearfield monitors in the room, while the KF650s sounded like there were a couple mattresses stacked up in front of them keeping you from hearing any direct sound and instead deflecting all the energy everywhere but at your ears.  The clarity and musicality was something I’ve never heard in the room before.  The room became FAR less of a factor because it didn’t feel like you were listening to the room – you were truly hearing what was coming from the speakers.  Subtle EQ translated, TL Space verbs sounded amazing on vocals, and everything just sounded like it should BEFORE you touched channel EQ.  The low end was tight and defined.  Kick and bass each had a place in the mix and someone said you could actually hear the string noise on the bass rather than just hearing tones that you assume are coming from a guitar.

The tests on Tuesday afternoon confirmed everything I suspected about the importance of the correct PA solution for the room and we’d never see the kind of progress leadership is looking for with volume without it.

We decided to go with the system for the midweek service and the results were pretty solid.  The entire night averaged 5 dB less than normal (mid-80′s to low 90′s rather than topping out at 95-97 dBA) but it didn’t feel like we compromised anything artistically.  With our 650s, there is a point you have to run at in order to have some degree of clarity and get over all of the interaction with the room.  A line array in the room all but removes that variable.  At the end of the service, we had an extended response time with broken down acoustic/vocal and the teacher trading back and forth.  This moment was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in this space.  I pulled everything WAY back so the music was in the high 60s-low 70s dBA and it felt perfect for the mood, but the vocal had every bit the same clarity, presence, and body that it had when we were 20-30 dB hotter earlier in the night.  Amazing!

Learnings from this test is that, in light of economic realities, we need to consider how a smaller and lower cost rig would fit into our room permanently.  The Kiva/Kilo combo wasn’t my favorite box, per se; I felt like it was a bit harsh and bright.  However, it was certainly enough box to get what we need from it on a week to week basis.  The 4 SB118s were a bit light on the low end, though, but that’s to be expected.  I also felt like I wished they extended down a bit lower then they did. We’ll have to experiment with the correct type of sub and quantity to get this right.

The next test is a set of L’Acoustics ARC’s that will be in the room for a few services.  Even though I know the pattern of these boxes is not a good fit long-term for our room, I’m interested to see what we think after living with something different for more than a single service.

The best part is that this test set some further ideas in motion.  A bit premature to discuss right now, but there will be more thoughts later…