Acoustics in a Church: Characteristic Reverberation

Room acoustics for churches and community hall
One of the few spaces that allows for a certain amount of reverberation, is a church. Due to the well-balanced reverberation (and pace of speech), the voice of the pastor reaches far into the room. This principle was already known when the first cathedrals where built in the middle ages. Even back then, acoustics were taken into account. Good acoustics in a church gives a full sound to vocals and music. This means that there is a certain amount of reverberation needed, but no echo. The difference between reverberation and echo, is that of a hollow sound versus double sound. Too much reverberation diminishes the intelligibility in a room. People with bad hearing in particular suffer from this. When buildings are repurposed, for example a transformation into a gathering room, the acoustics have to be addressed.

Flame Basic mounted to the ceiling, an almost invisible solution

How to improve the acoustics in churches
By installing acoustic panels the reverberation in a room can be diminished. In order to determine the right amount of acoustic panels, and the right location for them, we recommend identifying the types of complaints concerning the acoustics. The choir might like the reverb of a room, but it makes a speaking person much harder to hear. We have a basic solution that should give a good result that you might need to fine tune later on to improve the acoustics to everyone's liking.

The rule of thumb: to improve the acoustics in churches, and large spaces in general, you can safely assume that you need to cover about 60 to 70% of the ceiling with acoustic panels or products. In the images you see a solution in a church with a rather high ceiling with Flamex Basic mounted to the ceiling. This is an excellent example of the first stage, which might give a sufficient result. To fine this solution is to mount some acoustic panels to the back wall of the room, the wall where is spoken to. Again, fine tune the acoustics in consultation with a choir, you don't want to dampen to much sound.

In our range you can find various acoustic panels that are suitable to improve the acoustics in churches, against the ceiling or walls. We recommend the products Flamex Basic and Akotherm SF, excellent sound absorbing properties and these panels are the least noticeable.

Flame Basic used to improve the acoustics in the church

Images of room acoustics in a church
In the images you can see an example with white Flamex Basic sheets against the ceiling. The advantage of these sheets, 25 mm thcik, is that they barely stand out against the white ceiling. Attaching this product is easy to do with Stauf Extreme Tack adhesive paste. About 70% of the ceiling is equipped with the sheets. Flamex Basic efficiently absorb sounds in the middle and high frequency range. These are sounds like coughing, talking, moving chairs and the ticking of high heels.

Questions? 
Do you have questions about room acoustics and need some advice or product samples? Please feel free to contact us.