The traditional rectangular church building for many years had a suspended ceiling which was looking tired, so the church decided to open up the whole space and redecorate.
Unfortunately this removed the main source of sound absorption in the building and lead to an increase in reverberation time, making speech intelligibility poor and their modern worship style fatiguing.
APi Sound & Visual calculated that to reduce the reverberation time from the current 2.2 seconds to around 1.2 seconds (this is halfway between ideal speech and ideal amplified music recommendations) they required around 60sqM of additional absorption.
We used 25mm thick acoustic panels fixed to the walls. These are available in many colours sizes and shapes to fit in with the decor of the church.
The panels were placed along the rear wall, between the windows on the front wall with the remainder above the entrance door and on the wall with the cross.
Dave Goodson from Wootton New Life Church remarked: “It took us a few weeks to get used to as we were so used to the sound bouncing back to us but it has made a significant impact. The service throughout from APi Sound & Visual was efficient and positive, the product is just right for what we needed".
