Is Your Church Sound System Stereo or Mono?

[moosicman]

I'm curious to know what a consensus is and probably more importantly, why? I'd expect that many churches run mono because the sound/tech people are just volunteers and may get overwhelmed otherwise. Curious to know so please share!

[Gene]

At my old church, I had it set up in stereo. That helped for pre-recorded CDs and DVDs (like family movie night) and things that were stereo by nature. But it was also helpful to provide a little separation in the worship team when there was a larger group, vocals a little to stage right (where they stood) and instruments a little to stage left.

[wogster]

I inherited the system, so I think it's stereo, but without going into the back of a cabinet that backs onto a pew so you need to crawl under the pew to get at it, it's hard to tell. One issue though, stereo can really be meaningless, if the sanctuary is square or nearly square. Only a few seats in the middle will get the stereo effect, the rest will get one channel stronger, sometimes much stronger then the other, making it effectively mono.

[cmchamp]

Sort of.
Ours can be L/R + Mono center or LCR depending on the need.
We aren't doing an Easter program this year, but for the past 7 years, we've used the LCR option for best GBF since our stage shoots out in front of our speakers for our productions.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by moosicman

I'm curious to know what a consensus is and probably more importantly, why? I'd expect that many churches run mono because the sound/tech people are just volunteers and may get overwhelmed otherwise.

I believe that many mono systems are the result of being the most appropriate system approach for the application than of being due to any limitations on the part of the operators. And that many 'stereo' systems are probably indicative of not understanding some of the potential issues and factors involved with them.

What would be real interesting, and probably difficult to assess with a poll, is how many people that believe they have 'stereo' systems actually have stereo systems and not zoned mono or simply two channel systems. As Wogster noted, it is very common for people to think that having left and right speakers makes for a stereo system when true stereo means having the same relative level, frequency response and phase relationships between the sounds from the two channels at all listeners, which is very difficult to achieve over a larger listener area. So what many people end up with is a system that may be stereo for some listeners but that for many other listeners just sounds different at different locations throughout the listen area. It takes careful planning, system design and operation to obtain a good 'stereo' experience for a larger listening audience.

A simple experiment is to walk around your listener area while someone else manipulates the panning. Do the effects of panning vary significantly throughout the listener area? Do changes in panning affect the frequency response or intelligibility at some locations? If the answers to any of these are 'yes' then you may want to consider that in how you apply panning.

[waynehoskins]

I voted "stereo" but I should qualify that a bit.

It's a L/R system (with a center downfill) where each array does cover the majority of seats, but as noted, only the center bits actually hear "stereo", meaning they hear L and R at equal amplitudes. That's also affected by how we've in recent years expanded our seating more than I'd like.

With the exception of stereo or two-channel sources, we rarely pan very far away from center.

The first LCR system I read about was in the late '90s on a production of The Wiz. It may have been on/off Broadway, or a regional theatre, or even a university; it's been too long to recall the details. I do recall thinking it's a wonderful idea. I've used LCR on a couple of theatre shows locally in largely the same way, and it's really nice. It provides good center imaging where you want it, and you can get decent stereo separation and directionality where you want that.

[petereit]

Mono for now. Dolby surround when we go TV later this year.

[Frank DeWitt]

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

true stereo means having the same relative level, frequency response and phase relationships between the sounds from the two channels at all listeners, which is very difficult to achieve over a larger listener area.

My thought has always been where do you sit for stereo in this 1500 seat auditorium. We have left and right speakers because that is what I inherited (Centered over the left half and another set centered over the right half.)

I am very pleased to have mono with fair coverage (+/- 3 dB) same freq and same phase over most of the room. The back two rows are a bit funny, and the center isle is way funny but no one sits in the isle.

Frank

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by petereit

Mono for now. Dolby surround when we go TV later this year.

The production audio will be in surround or the house system will be surround?

[Tim Padrick]

It's a church only when someone rents it out for such, but...... Stereo - but I never pan. It's for equipment redundancy in case something should fail.

[wogster]

Originally Posted by petereit

Mono for now. Dolby surround when we go TV later this year.

Sounds like a good candidate for a multi-channel recorder that records each channel independently, then feeds into the existing mono house sound on the fly, then later re-mix from the recorded sound for broadcast.

[dmot]

We have one speaker in the center so its mono. We pan hard left or right for sub-groups.