Community theatre speakers

[Scott Langford]

I posted the following question over on av forum ansomeone suggested here may be the best option?
they also mentioned the JBL Pro series?

Here is my original question. Hope it's ok to post here.

I'm opening a community theatre and looking for some advice.

In my house I currently have 5.2.4 using tannoy Mx series, marantz sr6013 and Epson eh9400.

I'm tempted to use my current equipment in the community theatre I'm opening and upgrade my kit?

I'm just wondering what people would recommend. The theatre is around 25ft by 20ft, so not huge hence thinking my current setup may be sufficient.

I've up to about 10/15k to spend

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Welcome to the forums. A mod will probably move this to the "Ground Level" forum as that is a more suitable area for the question.

Some questions come to mind:

Are you going to show films only? Or will you do live performances with occasional films?

Be aware that cinema sound and live sound are two completely different animals, requiring different speaker placements (critical for film) and equalization.

I did a multi-use room at a University and had two separate sound systems, one for P.A. and another for cinema/video screenings.

If your existing setup is for live performances, probably best to leave it in place and have a cinema specialist spec out and install a proper cinema sound system.

I will say for a fact that it is not possible to give you the proper information over a forum, it requires an actual tech to do a site visit and evaluation for a proper design.

I will recommend that you look at QSC's Cinema product line (and their live sound line, if you want to upgrade your live sound) as QSC offers the best performance at a reasonable price point.

[Scott Langford]

Welcome to the forums. A mod will probably move this to the "Ground Level" forum as that is a more suitable area for the question.

Some questions come to mind:

Are you going to show films only? Or will you do live performances with occasional films?

Be aware that cinema sound and live sound are two completely different animals, requiring different speaker placements (critical for film) and equalization.

I did a multi-use room at a University and had two separate sound systems, one for P.A. and another for cinema/video screenings.

If your existing setup is for live performances, probably best to leave it in place and have a cinema specialist spec out and install a proper cinema sound system.

I will say for a fact that it is not possible to give you the proper information over a forum, it requires an actual tech to do a site visit and evaluation for a proper design.

I will recommend that you look at QSC's Cinema product line (and their live sound line, if you want to upgrade your live sound) as QSC offers the best performance at a reasonable price point.

I currently have the setup in my home for dedicated cinema.

The community project will be for dedicated cinema as well, no live performances.

I will be doing all of the work myself however as I'm funding the project from my own pocket.

[Michael Leader]

Hi..... I recommend you reach out to me directly. Where are you located? I have systems around the world.
You may reach me at: mleader@leadercinema.com www.leadercinema.com

I have designed systems for audiences as large as 3000 in concert hall sized venues for investor screenings such as 1991 Terminator 2 (we shook the building)

My systems are on Hollywood dubbing stages and premium state-of-the-professional art (not public cinema) Los Angeles screening rooms.

My smallest systems: 144 sq ft in a $ 4 million townhouse and in 1987 full mini Dolby Surround Sound system in a mobile home for a major studio.

I understand the challenges you will face. I have taken a look at your Tannoy MX series speakers. Even for a 400 sq ft room with an audience of 10 to 15 people (lots of absorption due to bodies), you will find that this type of speaker will lack the acoustical power to deliver movie soundtracks with high impact. Speaker control of its directivity is the most critical aspect in this application. Naked dome tweeters - mid range transducers do not do well in your application. High-quality waveguides and horns attempt to have far more predictable off-axis power response than naked dome devices. This is important, as, the majority of the audience will not be seated on the centerline. The audience should ideally have constant frequency response (power response) across the room. As the pitch or frequencies increase above 2kHz, the horizontal and vertical distribution of energy is not constant. The beam width on naked dome devices narrows. The other not so obvious result: as the mid and HF power response falls off, the sound becomes very wooly....due to there being far greater contribution of bass energy in the room vs the drop in mid and HF energy due to the collapsing energy / narrowing of the mid and HF coverage angles.

I know your Marantz product very well. I actually apply Marantz consumer processors alongside professional Dolby Cinema and Studio products in our projects that require (simplified) consumer sources of all flavors to live in a professional environment. The processors that Marantz makes are very clean and in my professional view are fine for your application. I have no experience with the internal power amplifiers your device has. However, their application is a home system quite fine. There again, once you have applied some wall acoustical treatment, and depending on the quality of the speaker systems you will apply, you will require equalization of the signal for each channel. The internal EQ on most consumer products is not appropriate for this application. If your Marantz has Pre-Amp outputs, these signals will be routed to external parametric EQ’s and then onto an external power amplifier to power superior speakers. Or in the case of powered speakers, the line-level output from the EQ’s will feed into the powered speaker.

Tell us about your theater and its purpose, please. As you will be using a consumer projector, you will not have access to DCP’s. A DCP is a Digital Cinema Package that denotes the delivery content, the motion picture, that is the same as delivered to public exhibition cinemas. At best, you be projecting consumer format video from a BluRay player or downloaded movie services Netflix etc.
Will you be charging admission? The consumer product is not licensed for public viewing...be careful.

With your limited budget, you can achieve a reasonable result. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

Michael Leader
T +1 213 359 8129