Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics

or The Bible’s Ratio for Church Acoustics

Every church is dedicated to God as a house of worship. The designers, builders, and congregations all seek that perfect balance between speech, congregational singing, and music. Most churches never experience this balance because they don’t follow the plan laid out in the Bible. Yes, the Bible does in fact lay out the perfect example for all churches to adhere to. The following is the standard. It starts with the ideal room shape for Christian Worship. The rest of the standard is how to complete the interior of the worship space.

Width 1
Height 1.5
Length 2

Example: 30 feet wide, 45 feet high, 60 feet long. Churches with this ratio are perfect when they complete the interior details that conform to the Biblical standard. However, from experience, the height ratio decreases as the room gets bigger. That is something the Golden ratio doesn’t cover. Church acoustics is very unique and very different from the needs of any secular music or entertainment venue.

The Following is that standard.

Absorption Ratio
• 30% of the total surface area of the room needs to be absorptive.
• For most churches, the carpet and padded seating are enough.
• For taller and higher-volume spaces, additional absorption high on the side of the walls will be needed to meet that 30% rule.
o In such cases, only 3 to 8% of the available wall space must be covered with extra absorption.
Reflection Ratio
• The total amount of untreated reflective surface space will be 52-55%
• There are to be no bare wall areas perpendicular to the stage/altar area greater than 49 square feet where the length to width of the exposed space is less than a 3:1 ratio, including windows.
• Reflective areas are to be combined with diffusive surfaces to maintain a balanced ratio.
Diffusion Ratio
• The average amount of diffusion from half rounds is 15 to 18% of the total wall space.
• The length of the tubes needs to be 2/3rds of the wall height.
• The ideal tube sizes needed are 8-, 12-, and 16-inch half rounds.
• The tube spacing, groupings, and sizes can be combined to give the room the flat frequency response it is supposed to have to correct any acoustical irregularities from improper worship space building practices in the existing space already have.
• The ideal Tube spacing should be 17 to 23 inches centers or less (depending on tube sizes.)
• All the walls need diffusion, no exceptions.
• All sidewalls to the seating audience need to have diffusers at ear height when sitting down.
• The half-round tubes don’t work if they are mounted horizontally.
The Ideal Reverberation Time
• Reverberation for Church Worship should never be greater than 1.7 seconds between 300 – 3000 Hertz regardless of the size of the room.
• The reverberation from 50 to 300 Hertz should never exceed 1.4 seconds.
Frequency Response of Worship Spaces
• The frequency response of the room should be:
o +/- 6dB from 20 to 100 Hertz and
o +/- 5dB from 100 to 4000 Hertz and
o +/-4dB from 4000 to 8000 Hertz and
o 6dB per octave roll-off from 8000-20000Hz.
Signal-To-Noise Ratio
• The ideal signal-to-noise ratio is to be 20dB or greater at 512 and 1024 Hertz.

This standard is universal. It has been applied in rooms with all kinds of shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter what style of worship your church practices; this standard works every time it is followed, and hundreds of churches have already implemented it. If your church is seeking better congregational singing, better sound system performance, or better speech clarity, this standard will solve those problems and improve the overall quality of worship. I don’t make that promise, but God does because this is from Him. Imagine a 3500-year-old recipe that solves all the church sound problems in the twenty-first century.