CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Live Sound: Getting To The Bottom Line: Factors Of A “Good” Sound Reinforcement System

Pro Sound Web: How many sound systems are in use? Many millions, for sure, and they’re found in all types of venues and for all kinds of programs.So one would think we’d know exactly how to do it by now. But there seems to be plenty of examples to prove that we don’t. Why should this be? What is it we don’t yet understand? Do we even know enough to know what we don’t know?

1 comment:

Daniel L said...

The major flaws in this article are its failure to mention cost and physical characteristics, both of which are probably more important to the average church than are consistency and timbre.

There is a lot of talk about perceived spectral tilt at great distances in here, and there is a lot of additional research that indicates people compare the sound to the sound they would expect based on their seat rather than compare it to an absolute.

And usually the factors that Mr. Thurmond discusses here involve compromise. A system that has a really warm musicality (or some other subjective characteristic like that) may lack in intelligibility. The best 'sounding' box may be the least reliable. These are important things about which to think, but there is not some threshold for a 'good; system based on these characteristics as Mr. Thurmond implies; "good" is application-specific.