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Projects, live events, news, facts, and answers from the SSOUNDS team.
If you run regular events (weekly services, a venue), buying pays off and you control quality. For one-off or occasional events, renting a tour-grade rig with an engineer is more cost-effective and removes storage, maintenance and transport headaches. SSOUNDS does both, we can advise based on your event calendar.
Match your amplifier's continuous (RMS) power rating to the speaker's continuous power handling at the same impedance. A ratio of 1:1 to 1.5:1 amplifier-to-speaker is a safe working range, enough to reproduce transients cleanly without operating the amplifier at the edge of its linear range. The most common mistake is underpowering. When an amplifier runs out of power before the desired listening level is reached, it clips, the output waveform flattens, converting clean audio into a signal rich in high-frequency harmonics. Those harmonics pass through the crossover into the compression driver, which cannot absorb them as heat. Tweeters damaged by clipped amplifiers are almost always blamed on too much power but are almost always caused by too little. Impedance must match the amplifier's rated output. An amplifier rated at 500W into 8 ohms will typically deliver close to 1000W into 4 ohms, but only if rated to drive a 4-ohm load. Running an amplifier below its minimum impedance rating risks thermal damage to the output stage. Always check the minimum impedance specification before wiring multiple cabinets on a single channel.
Feedback occurs when a microphone picks up the amplified output of its own signal through a loudspeaker, and that loop gain exceeds 1, at which point the system oscillates. The primary controls are the microphone polar pattern, gain structure, and physical positioning. A cardioid microphone pointed away from the loudspeakers has the greatest rejection of their output. Lower console gain means less amplification in the loop. A microphone held closer to the source requires less gain, reducing all gains simultaneously. The relationship between microphone-to-source distance and gain before feedback is direct: halving the distance between the microphone and the vocalist's mouth reduces the required input gain by approximately 6 dB. That 6 dB allows 6 dB more headroom before the loop reaches oscillation. Performers who pull the microphone away from their face while singing are giving away this headroom unnecessarily. Physical positioning of loudspeakers relative to microphones is the most powerful feedback control. A main PA positioned in front of the microphones, aimed away from the stage, is fundamentally better than any configuration where loudspeakers are behind or beside open microphones. No amount of EQ corrects a geometrically bad speaker placement.
A point source loudspeaker radiates from a single acoustic centre, and level falls off at 6 dB for every doubling of distance as energy spreads across an ever-larger spherical surface. A line array assembles multiple drivers in a vertical column so they behave as a single coherent line source; in the near field, level falls at only 3 dB per doubling of distance because energy spreads across a cylindrical surface rather than a spherical one. This difference is significant over long throw distances. Beyond the level falloff advantage, line arrays provide vertical directional control through the coherent interference of their stacked drivers. A curved J-hang allows the system engineer to distribute vertical energy across the audience plane, concentrating output where it is needed and reducing energy aimed at the ceiling or floor. Line arrays are not universally superior. In small rooms the minimum throw distance means front rows can be in an uncontrolled coverage zone. Point source loudspeakers cover short distances well, deploy without specialist rigging, and cost less. The correct choice depends on venue geometry, throw distance, and budget.
It depends on room volume, seat count, reverberation and music style more than seat count alone. As a rough guide, a 200–500 seat sanctuary is well served by a compact line array or point-source pair plus a sub; 1,000+ seats usually needs a proper line array with cardioid subs. We do a free acoustic assessment to spec it precisely.
