[Scott Dorsey]

TimR wrote:
I see that I did not read precisely enough the first time.

I thought people were recommending a sound system expert, and that's
what seemed reasonable to me. But an acoustician is differerent, I
think?

Yes. If the hall acoustics are lousy, a PA system will make things worse.
If the hall acoustics are designed for the job, a PA system install will
be comparatively cheap and easy.

It may be too late to affect the acoustical design of the hall, and I
can pretty much guarantee this is not a factor that was considered,
because I review a lot of designs for this organization. I have
access to a similar church already built about a three hour drive
away, I guess I need to get up there and look at it.

Similar-looking rooms can sound dramatically different from one another,
and you can make a lot of changes to the room in terms of materials
even after the first set of plans have been drawn up. You can't do
things like move walls around and cock them in and out so they are
not quite parallel, perhaps, but you can add diffusion and diffraction
and you can change drywall out for acoustical materials.

My home church (not this one) is an older traditional liturgical
church. If I drop a handbell, I can polish it and put it back in the
case before the room stops echoing. (slight exaggeration, but it's
pretty live) We don't do contemporary but tried it once and it was
truly awful. Is sustain the biggest thing to look for?

No you want the SHORTEST POSSIBLE sustain (as measured as RT60 or T30)
possible, if you're going to have contemporary services in there. You
want the room dry, dry, dry. A room that sounds great with a choir
will turn into a horrible nightmare when you have a rock band playing
in it. Go back and read my last four posts on this thread.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."