speaker placement for a church

[Gibu]

Hi,

I have received two suggestions about speaker placements in our church.

The dimensions of our church are 65 feet length, 25 feet wide, 18 feet height.

We had extended the church to get the above dimensions and hence a few years back we added two additional speakers.

Our current setup has 6X150W - RMS- Das speakers. (8 inch). The speakers sound good though it has very limited hi.

We are revamping our setup. We fight with feedback in the church because of 8 choir microphones. But you have to assume we can't live without them. The current placement of one of the speakers is bad.

The existing setup has 6 speakers, all side wall mounted at a height of 9-14 ft as shown in 1-Church-existing.png.
Option I suggested is placing 4X400W in a zig zag manner to prevent feedback as seen in 2-Church-new-option1-zigzag.png. The height placement will be around 10-14 feet from the ground on the side wall.
Option 2 suggested is placing 4X400W by a hanging from the roof. This will force us to pull wires from the outside as there is no internal wiring supporting this option. Shown in 3-Church-new-option2-hanging.png.

I have attached 3 images showing the various options.

I am not sure if should go with Option 2 as aesthetics can get hit. But I would like to hear any opinion/feedback you have on which option we should go with - Option I or Option II or stay with the current setup from a speaker placement / design standpoint.

Any comments on the speaker power used is also welcome.

Thank you in advance.
Gibu

 

[MarshallPope]

I tend to think that what you currently have should be workable with some love. If you have any actual photos of the space, that would be helpful for us to get a better idea of your situation. Also, what kind of building is it? Are the walls drywall, plaster, block, etc? What about the ceiling? Acoustical tile, steel, etc?

What is your choir situation? I wonder if you may actually solve some problems by reducing the number of mics you are using.

This really is the kind of thing that it would be most helpful for you if you were able to get someone into the space to look at and listen to it with you.

 

[Gibu]

Its plastered walls. The roof is concrete. It looks like 5x5x3 feet blocks (created by beams and columns going left and right) when you look at the top as the building has two other floor above it. The existing sound system is 7+ years old.

Updated : Please note it is not air-conditioned. There are fans in there. A photo included.

The two options were given by two different vendors. Hence the confusion.