Facts about Acoustical Treatments
Update 2022

Most acoustics treatments applied to churches fail to improve congregational singing.  Yes, adding enough of any acoustical product to a worship space will change how the room sounds, but in most cases, the change is exchanging one set of acoustics problems for another set of problems.  As a result, there is no real improvement in the overall quality of worship. 

When using the Biblical method of treating the acoustics of a worship space, not only is there an improvement, congregational singing is significantly enhanced.  In most churches that upgraded their sound the Biblical way, the audience participation often goes from less than 30% of the congregation signing to over 70% of the congregation singing within a few weeks after the worship space is upgraded.  This realizes a church attendance from 5 to 25% within the first year and higher attendance for years to come.  This improvement in attendance comes from making the room friendlier to anyone with hearing issues, which affects from 8 to 25% of any population group.

Having any worship space enhanced with Biblical acoustics makes the room more accessible for everyone rather than just for younger people.  Here is an example of a brand new church, where during their first worship service, the song leader asked everyone to sing acapella.  Few churches begin with good sound on the first day and every following worship service.  Whether a new or existing church bringing the sound performance levels up to Biblical standards makes the worship space a room where people will want to worship in, rather than a place where people wonder if they can understand the whole message without playing it back later electronically. 

If you want to experience a great-sounding worship space, visit Shantz Mennonite Church in Baden, Ontario, Canada.  This is just the latest of the hundreds of churches that have had their sound managed according to what the Bible teaches.  Sound in a worship space managed any other way comes up short in meeting the needs of any congregation. 

The truth is, the most you can do with other room shapes is make them as usable as possible. You can make any room shape perform almost as good as a rectangle but these rooms will never “sound” like a rectangle. Every room has its own unique sound but few people get to hear it.

A rectangle room used sideways will never sound as good as a room used lengthwise.
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Some churches are in such denial about their acoustical problems that they would rather teach the
church members Sign Language.
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Some churches are in such denial about their acoustical problems that they would rather keep buying
new sound systems for minor gains at 3 times the cost of making acoustical changes to fix the sound.
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Some churches are in such denial about their acoustical problems that they rather build another
new church without acoustical help and hope the results will be different.
(which is how their existing church was built!)
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Some churches are in such denial about their acoustical problems that they would let the church split.
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Nothing gets in the way of hearing the gospel more than the invisible and hidden dangers
between the pulpit and the audience.
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Nothing gets in the way of hearing the gospel more than the invisible and hidden dangers
between the sound system speakers and the audience.
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Nothing gets in the way of understanding the worship and music more than the invisible and hidden dangers
between the sound system speakers and the audience.
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If you build a car without an engine, it will look nice but it won’t be able to go anywhere. 
If you build a church without acoustics, it can’t contribute to the community it is supposed to serve.

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Get your hearing tested for free. If you have an iPad, iPod or iPhone, you can test your hearing with a free App. It is good enough to confirm whether if you have a hearing problem and whether you should be getting professional help.

The software is from Unitron and they make hearing aids. So while some people think that this is just a sales marketing tool, and it very well may be, but it matches a hearing test of mine done in a proper lab hours apart. That is good enough to decide who should be behind a mixer and making adjustments during worship.

What I have also done is use this test for people who persistently ask me to turn things up – even when they have sat in different places. When everything is working properly and I know the sound system is passing the STI speech intelligibility test, I will ask the person to take the test. Be gentle and kind when asking people to take the test. When people discover that they need help, setting them off in getting their hearing back often gives them back their life too. The App is called “U-Hear”
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If experiencing poor sound in church could be measured as pain and people are not complaining about it, it could be because they don't consider taking 10 extra strength pain killers per worship service as overdosing.
Joseph De Buglio Jan 2013

- The Bible gives us the best plan for church acoustics that also allows for
the best sound system performance possible. (Dec, 2012)

- It is easy to fix the acoustics good enough to make a sound system work better but for the same cost you can make all of the worship service sound better. (Dec, 2012)

- All Sound Systems are like magnifying glasses for the room acoustics. (Nov 2012)

- If your Worship space performs properly, so will the sound system give a great performance.
- If the worship space doesn't perform well, no sound system can make a bad room sound good. (Oct 2012)

- If you have replaced your sound system two or more times in the last 15 years, you will most likely have to fix the room first before you will be able to get any significant sound system performance improvements.
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From St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Winter Park Florida August 27 2012
A member told Fr. Walsh, “Either the sound is getting better, or my hearing has miraculously improved.” 
Another member gave one of the ushers his hearing assistance device and said, “Take this, someone else might be able to use it now.” 
I have only heard folks saying they could hear more clearly than ever and that the treatment aesthetically makes the place feel comfortably smaller, not so big and antiseptic. 

The ocean of air between the pulpit and the listener has many invisible perils.  The biggest danger is when sound is on it's journey, destructive reflections amplified by the sound system often changes the sounds of the words.  This always changes the meaning of the message.  Joseph De Buglio April 16 2012

When standing at the pulpit at your church and the sound system is off, do you speaker louder or quieter? 
When you turn the sound system on, do you speak just as loud or quieter? 
If you answer quieter to either of these two questions, you most likely have a major acoustical problem.
October 22, 2011

"All churches are unique.  Even when two churches are built alike, they will both be different and they will sound different because no two congregations are alike and they will always want to personalize a new building design.  All churches have the same special requirements.  All churches have the same basic requirements and some have advanced requirements.  These requirements are not optional as they are the foundation of what is needed to hear and participate in a large space.  Management of sound in the church is to always achieve the same goals regardless of the room shape, size and materials built from. All churches want the same results whether the sound is amplified or not. All churches are unique. All churches want to be unique yet they all want the same results - to hear speech and music clearly."
Is this possible!!! 
It is possible and it has been done.

(c) Joseph De Buglio 2011

So you dial in a great mix when the praise team or choir rehearsed before worship service. Everything sounds great. Everything sounds grand for the first song. Then about half way through the 2nd or 3rd song, the music starts to sound horrible. The balance of the vocals and instruments are way off. It seems like the vocals and any instruments using open mics are being turn down or the electronic instruments were turned up. Seconds later, you hear the onset of feedback or ringing in the sound system. But how! Everything was sounding so good just a few seconds ago. HELP!!!!

Is this sort of scenario happening almost every week? Are you finding that after a few songs the performance of the sound system has changes? Are you struggling with getting decent gain before feedback, even with the pastor's headset mic? Is this a sound system problem and do we have to upgrade again? If the sound at your church changes during worship or from week to week, it's not you (the sound operator); it's not your sound system; it's not the performers, the choir or the people speaking through the sound system. 99% of the time the problem is a result of the room.

The sequence of reflections, the storage of energy in a confined space and the large flat surfaces in a worship space are all susceptible to climate changes. When people sing, they change the humidity and temperature of the worship space. Sound travels faster through water than through the air. When you rehearsed before worship the room had a lower level of humidity. As people started coming into the worship space, already the temperature started going up and churches with air conditioning, most systems are not able to keep the room stable during worship. When the people start to sing, the humidity of the room changes and the threshold of feedback shift from being stable to unstable. When this happens all you can do is lower the level of the sound system. Micro-managing each and every microphone changes the mix balance and things go downhill from there. Just turn the master fader down and leave the mix alone. It will keep the glaring eyes down to a dull roar.

The fix is - as you can guess - is fix the acoustics. A room with the acoustics as was in Solomon's temple will give your worship experience a stable sound system and an improvement in the congregational singing too.

In my books, a church without acoustical treatment or has built in features is a church that has not been completed. Another way of saying it, a church is not finished its construction until the acoustics are done. What kind of acoustics? Any system that can give you at least 12 of the 14 item listed below.

Question: When is there too much bass in a church?
Answer: When everyone else can hear it and the performers can't.

There are two main approaches to acoustics in churches.
One approach is call "sound system acoustics." That is when the acoustical fix is designed to get more performance from a sound system. This often means going overboard with a single action treatment which often "kills the room" or they provide just enough treatment to get enough additional performance to justify a sound system upgrade. While the sound system does perform better, it is most likely not working as well as it could and often the worship experience is reduced somewhat. In many instances the worship experience, especially the congregational singing is reduced a lot.
The second approach is called "Complete church acoustics." That is when the acoustical fix brings the room up to peak performance for almost all aspects of worship. In one step the fix is designed to make the room perform well for;

1. congregational singing
2. the praise and worship team
3. cutting the stage noise down
4. improving the sound of the choir and for the choir to hear themselves
5. improves the ability for the praise team to hear each other whether using IEM or floor monitors
6. assisting the ministers to hear themselves better
7. hearing speech without a sound system to a larger area of the room without the sound system (up to 80 ft in most rooms)
8. people with hearing aids to hear further without assistance. If you can hearing well at 10 ft normal conversation in a quiet room, the church acoustics should be just as good. (depending on the type of hearing loss you may have.)
9. any acoustical performances such as the piano, the pipe organ or digital organ, guitars and orchestra instruments.
10. improving the bass response for all musical instruments and amplified bass
11. sub woofers will see a 3 to 6dB boost
12. drum kits (reducing or eliminating the need for drum shields.)
13. tremendous gain before feedback
14. Less distortion from the sound system
15. Able to mix from any seat in the church

A room that can do all of this would be an excellent worship space that can double as a multi-purpose worship space able to perform well for all styles of preaching, worship and music. The big question is, which acoustical fix will cost less?
The two approaches to church acoustics often cost the same. If your sound system company is recommending an acoustical fix for your church to improve the sound system performance and they are not offering to fix any or most these problems at the same time, then you could be compromising your church further and doing more harm to the spiritual growth of your church. Gaining a better sound system at the expense of congregational singing can undo everything your minister and elders are trying to do. All of your acoustical and sound system problems should be fixed in one step and we have the most experience in keeping that promise.


A Classic Church and Cathedral - Kingston Rd United Church, Completed 2009. You can have conversations with people at 130 ft in this room and the RT60 is over 1.6 seconds.


In 1987, this project included real projection, high powered subwoofers, over 25 performers on stage and 56 channel Soundcraft mixer.

A congregation isn't passive like the audience in a theatre or concert hall. Worshipers play a vital, active role. Churches should be an environment that connects the people to each other and supports their participation in the worship and the message.

Good church acoustics should be part of your outreach and growth plans by making the worship experience exciting and spiritual.

The days of the “Wait and See results” when a new church is built or debating fixing an existing church are over. Doing the proper Math, Science, and Physics that is specifically geared to church is what gets results.

Church Sound Systems and Church Acoustics is a recipe of Science, Physics, Mathematics, a detailed knowledge of Resources, Materials and Technology and knowledge of how the different denominations and worship styles use speech and music to communicate.