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The Average Church Buys Ten Sound Systems

Posted by jdbsound on July 15, 2021


Do churches really buy that many sound systems?

The first sound system

The first sound system is the cheapest system the church can afford and is installed without much knowledge or research about system design, by someone with good intentions. 

It does amplify sound, and everyone adjusts their hearing and puts up with it.  Every time the system is turned on, it sounds different.  This sound system lasts only until the minister threatens to leave, when church members do leave, or enough people complain about it.

The second sound system

The second sound system is by a church member, or a friend of a church member, or a person, who does church sound on the side or as an extension of their secular business.  The new sound system is better behaved but, in the end, the overall performance is only slightly better that the previous system.  The minister is annoyed by people asking him to repeat or explain parts of the sermon almost every week.  The person or company installing this sound system are under the notion that at the end of the project, they will have a modest profit. Did anyone see a Profit! Oh! What a novel idea! 

The third sound system

The third sound system is a sound system designed and installed by a professional, meeting most of the goals promised in a verbal agreement.  While some parts of the sound system are performing well, other issues become more noticeable.  Yes, there is less audio feedback heard, but speech clarity for people over 40 has not improved.  Amplified music sounds mushy.  The minister’s confidence takes a hit every time people talk to him after the service or through the week, asking questions as if he is not preaching the Gospel properly, when it was the sound in the room that changed the words that left his mouth and arrived to the listeners as being something else.  Some people returned because the sound was more stable, not because it is much better, and for others, it is more likely they miss their friends.

A written agreement is never offered or requested because we all know the myth and lie, that the outcome is too unpredictable and rarely lives up to expectations.  Often this sound system is in whole or in part paid for from a single donation or is bequeathed from a persons will.  The professional thanks the churches he helps for upgrading his car every few months.

The fourth sound system

The fourth sound system is designed and installed by another professional promising to do better.  In making some parts of the sound system better, it came at a compromise of something else regardless of the cost.  The church buys additional hardware for the system from someone else and it does provide some marginal improvements, but not enough to satisfy most of the church members.  The designer had suggested for acoustical improvements but downplays it so that the acoustics would not impact the sound system profits.  People with hearing aids that have the “T” switch like the loop system but even in the hearing aids, real sound clarity is not there, even with the high quality digital technology used to make a loop system work so much better.  While these people are not straining to hear because of loudness, understanding the message does come into question.

Another mythical illusion that is often perpetuated, is that there is more profit in audio hardware than in supplying acoustical treatments and proper acoustics fixes are too expensive for the average church to afford.  The professional thanks the church for the new motor home. 

The fifth sound system

The fifth sound system is installed by a well-known professional who also expresses a warning that the acoustics must be fixed too.  After the installation is completed and after the honeymoon phase of the upgrade has passed, you realize that things that have improved did get better, but other problems showed up, limiting the sound system’s overall performance as being no better.  You call him to come back, he offers you more gear, but you cannot afford it. 

Many people say they like hearing the MP3 playback of the message in their car, on their computer, or Bluetooth, and most of them quietly wish they could have understood the message while at church, so as to being able to ask the minister meaningful questions at the end of the service to expand their understanding of the Gospel.  Church elders notice a high turnover in church attendance. They attribute the turnover to social and economic reasons, certainly not because of sound.

Inside of all the fancy professional paperwork, there was supposed to be a professionally written performance agreement, which was never included, so the church has no recourse.  The cycle of stepping two steps forward is met with surprise when everyone finally realizes that they also took an equal two steps back.  The professional keeps your money regardless of your choices and swims victory laps in his new family swimming pool.

The sixth sound system

The sixth sound system is installed with great promise by a high-end professional with the same warning that the acoustics should be addressed.  The proposal included an acoustical design that came from a person who is a professional at noise management, and has never designed a successful performing acoustical space in any of those type of projects.  The church ignores doing the acoustics, banking on the new “state-of-the-art” devises that are filled with promises of improvements to make the sound problems go away. 

In silence, the church leaders accept another expensive system upgrade that shows just a minor change that hardly justifies the cost.  There was hope that the congregation would be more involved with singing, but they are just as passive as before.

The high-end professional takes your money without hesitation so he can have bragging rights to sell to other churches.  These professionals know that the majority of churches do not talk to each other or check references.  They also know that most churches are too stubborn to get their acoustics fixed first.  The professional upgrades his home theatre to schmooze and impress his secular clients who are harder to sell products and services to, because they have specific performance goals written into their contracts that they will not compromise on. 

The seventh sound system

The seventh sound system looks impressive, and it also includes a different acoustical design.  The professional suggests that the bigger and “better” new sound system would be a great sales gimmick to attract more people from the church across the street.  More people do come, but because the Church board, did not implement the acoustic plan, congregational singing languishes, and more hardware is purchased to do entertainment style worship, leading most of the people into getting engaged in the show.  The rock concert quality sound system, the video walls, motorized lights, smoke machines, are all adding to the entertainment elements that distract people from the subpar sound quality.  The professional now travels first class.

The eighth sound system

The eighth-sound system the professional designs is used as a gimmick along with multi-media to compete with other online ministries.  Additional digital technology is used to mask the real sound of the church from the online service and to broadcast publicly. The equipment does an excellent job in preventing people from hearing echoes and the poor-quality reverberation of those who have attended church, have learned to put up with.  For those who attend regularly, they like the weekly show.  The right acoustical treatment would have been cheaper, but the enslavement of technology blinds everyone from seeing the bigger picture.  The church continues down the path of substituting worship with entertainment – but still calling it worship because they include words like Jesus, Holy Spirit and God in some of the songs.  After all, it is all about Him.  We can get saved later.  Right!

After getting a contract and deposit, the professional, who used an expensive rental car during earlier visits, shows up in a new luxury car, demonstrating that high end sound systems are needed in every church, regardless of whether they make any meaningful improvements.

The ninth sound system

The ninth sound system the professional designs is to keep the church growth momentum moving forward to attract more people from the other side of town.  Again, acoustics is ignored.  Since most of the other churches have subpar acoustics, most people attend the church with the best music show, the best motivational preacher, the best coffee, the best free food, the shortest sermons, or all the above. Such churches get people addicted to the drug like effect when dopamine and endorphins are released after following a specific ritualistic, high energy program.  Who can pass up that kind of drug and alcohol free high every week? 

Scientists call dopamine and endorphins the Happy Drugs the body naturally releases when stimulated.  A galvanizing, well planned choreographed series of songs, music, visuals, and storytelling events trigger the natural drugs in the brain.  Many people are hooked to this type of worship.  Whenever the show becomes too routine and it does not have enough stimulation, many will look for other churches to get the same buzz.  When that stimulation isn’t enough, then they go back to the first church and start over again.  Biblical teaching becomes secondary or nonexistent and any teaching from a Bible is focus on ways to keep people stimulated by focusing most of their attention on themselves. 

Who knew that sanctuary acoustics could lead to secularizing the church worship into worship entertainment?  Many churches, look and sound like a business rather than a place where Christians come to show their love of God through a holy time of gathering of the faithful – and not the addicted?  Some churches have bought different versions of the ninth sound system purely to attract those who thrive on that kind of stimulation which is a cheap way to get rich in a religious business.  Oh, didn’t you know!  Most people with a higher income greatly support churches that make them feel good.  Being saved or born again, is assumed or skipped over if you give a lot and the message makes you feel better.  That is no different than those high priced motivational speakers living very wealthy lives entertaining people with their secular version of the health, wealth and the prosperity gospel.

The professional tells his neighbor how another church paid for another addition to his house.  If you want to soar with eagles you have to be an eagle.  In case you didn’t know, eagles are classed as scavenger birds.

The tenth sound system

The tenth sound system is designed by an expert.  This is the final new sound system most of us never hear about.  It is a sound system that will never have to be redesigned again.  All that is required in the future is that as equipment ages, you only need to replace what is broken or upgrade the technology as more capabilities become available. 

This sound system is designed the same as the 3rd sound system following the upgraded acoustics designed by someone who does church acoustics and sound systems exclusively and gives a written description of how the worship space will perform after the upgrade.  Even though his professionalism is lacking, everyone is thrilled that congregational singing was finally fixed since the church opened at no added cost.  The acoustic upgrade, which costs a fraction of any of the other sound systems allows this older sound system design to outperform all the other six previous sound systems by 400 to 2500%. (Audio improvements follow a logarithmic scale.)  If your church is past its third sound system design or upgrade, stop, save your money, and fix the room.  The room is essentially screaming that it needs to be fixed and the sound system is always amplifying the problems.

There are a lot of sound contractors who will keep designing, selling, and installing you a newer sound system so they can buy a newer cottage, a bigger home or take another cruise ship vacation this month. The expert looks into the full church and prays that another soul hears the Gospel message and starts living a life with Christ, than seeking religion.

The facts

The fact is, not many churches will really buy 10 sound systems.  Few churches will start with the tenth sound system.  The majority of churches skip steps, but the outcomes are no different.  Many churches start with the first sound system while many newer and wealthier churches start with the 3rd or 4th system.  Other churches go from the 4th, to 7th, or 8th system.  Some churches are on the 3rd or 4th version or the 9th system.  The shortfall of these worship spaces are all predictable by the mere fact that any room that doesn’t have any acoustical treatment or the right method of managing church acoustics, means  the results are always the same.

Equipment

Churches that are on system 3 through 9, often have individuals who are gadget and technology driven.  To some of them, fixing the acoustics is like putting the brakes on technology.  If anything, visit any church out there that has upgraded their sound system in the last 5 years and you will find lots of perfectly good hardware that was deemed useless because it didn’t live up to its promised performance.  The truth is, all of that hardware that is still working or repairable would have never been bought in the first place had the acoustics been ideal.  With good acoustics, the tendency is to buy higher quality technology less often because you know it is going to work the first time and every day after that as the manufacturer designed it.  Every piece of audio hardware is limited by the acoustics of the room it is used in.  That is a hidden secret every equipment manufacturer knows about and intentionally leaves out of their manuals.

If you ask any audio manufacturer these days, many will admit that 50 to 60% of their equipment ends up in churches.  Yet after 70 years of churches with sound systems, in all of that time, the quality of worship hasn’t really improved.  The only change is that in more and more churches the worship is switching from active participation in the pews and seating, to passive worship.  That really isn’t worship – that is being entertained.  That is like being addicted to feel good messages and a focus on what you get out of worship rather than worshiping because you have a true love for God.

What should worship look like, Matthew 22:37-39 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like unto it, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

When you are at church, during worship, do people sing and pay attention to the sermon with the focused attention of someone loving God with all their heart, mind and soul, or does it look like people having a good time, swaying to the music, sipping coffee during the sermon, remembering the jokes and the story at the beginning that often has little to do with the short message? 

After working with churches for a long time, these are some of the stories some churches have shared on their journey to getting the performance from their worship space and sound system their congregation deserved.  The ongoing myth that eventually audio technology can replace or put off the need to complete or fix the acoustics of a church is one of the most expensive decisions a church can make.  For some churches, the repeated cycle of redesigning sound systems to reach that elusive goal of perfect sound every few years, costs more than replacing a parking lot, a roof,  more storage, employment for a second pastor or church staff, and so much more.  Technology improvements comes with the illusion that it has the power to defy the laws of physics when it comes to church sound systems. 

A sound system can only perform as well as the room allows it.  You do not have to take my word for it.  Look at any concert hall or performance space that is profitable and it will have acoustical planning, panels or features that help to turn any performance into a memorable event.  The same applies to recording studios.  The better the acoustics, the less time it takes to complete a project, the lower the cost to the customer.  The quick results and lower costs lead to a higher rate of returning customers for future projects.  Recording studios and concert halls depend on repeat business and the single most common elements they have are acoustics.  Why would this model for sound excellence be any different in a church?

What is the difference between an expert and a professional? 

The church sound professional is the knowledgeable salesman with business degrees and higher education, often in unrelated fields for his business or company.  While their company does a lot of churches, church work is not exclusive and is no better than anyone else’s results.  Everything that they do is profit driven.  The professional knows how to say what the customer wants to hear, manipulating the customer into believing they are the best.  The professional shows an extreme level of patience, well-rehearsed business etiquette, confidence, quick with the paperwork, and makes the promise that whatever you ask for, they have the talent to do it.  Professionals count on repeat customers who remember their professionalism that masks their recollection on the unimproved results. 

The church sound expert is the person who works exclusively on churches.  He knows how to accurately diagnose the problems, and is compelled to tell you the truth, whether you like to hear it or not.  He believes that the more informed the church leaders are, the more likely the church will make the right decisions that will save the church thousands of dollars in the future.  He can precisely predict the results before anything is done and rarely makes mistakes.  He can back up the results from past experiences.  The expert will be honest and care more about getting you the right solution that will work the first time, at the expense of any illusion of being a fancy, smooth talking professional.  The expert is often not profit oriented, he cares more about your reputation within the church community, by getting results that count.  He often gets referrals or is asked to fix other rooms in the same church, and never gets a repeat customer.  If the expert must go back and fix the room again, he is not an expert. He is a “professional expert,” you know, the jack of all trades, passing himself off as an expert.

Who is fixing your church today?

A PDF Version of this post is here. the average church buys 10 sound systems photos_s.pdf (jdbsound.com)

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Does sound quality in a Worship Space –

Posted by jdbsound on June 22, 2021


  • Affect church attendance?
  • Affects church finances?
  • Affects church health?
  • Affects a church’s reputation within a local community?
  • Affects how people respond to the Gospel message?
  • Affects what a minister preaches the Gospel?
  • Affects how a minister preaches?
  • Affects people emotionally?

Myths vs Facts: 

According to various hearing organizations such as the American or Canadian Hearing Societies and other health organizations, 8 to 25% of people will have hearing loss or impairment within any community. For some people, the hearing loss is in one ear or both ears. For other people, using a hearing aid does make up the difference so those people can interact socially with others without needing to use sign language. The bottom line is, if a person can have a normal conversation in a living room but has trouble hearing and being engaged in conversations in larger rooms, these people are less likely to attend a church with less-than-ideal acoustics and amplified sound. Hearing loss, the invisible disability, does make social gatherings awkward for many. Numerous people with hearing loss resort to the practice of self-isolation from social events, including weekly worship services. Sound does have an impact on church attendance for those who have any kind of loss or impairment.

Good acoustics and sound system design in a church make the worship space much more accessible and appealing for those with hearing loss within any community. That is why churches that follow the Bible, when it comes to worship space acoustics, experienced a consistent and sustained 10% attendance increase on average 6 to 18 months after upgrading, while churches that just upgrade their sound system and not the acoustics realize a short-term increase of 5% and 2% over long-term follow-ups. Churches that upgraded both the acoustics and sound system saw no significant attendance changes when compared to churches that just upgraded the acoustics. (However, some churches did reinstalling the existing speaker system to take advantage of the better acoustical conditions and expand the performance of the sound system.)

These facts have been consistent with churches where the pastor, church leadership, and local economies had not changed from 3 years before to 5 years after upgrading the acoustics. The conclusion is, no matter how good or popular your pastor is as a preacher and leader, if the acoustics and sound system are not up to Biblical standards, there are many people who are being excluded. Depending on your point of view, some people see this as a denial of service.

Another thing to consider is that an attendance change of 10% also adds up to a 10 – 15% annual increase in tithes and offerings. For a typical 400 seat church, that could represent an income difference of $208,000.00 over ten years or enough money to replace a church roof.

(Fact: Most churches will sell parts of their property, including their parking lot, to pay for building repairs such as roof replacement.)

Church Size400 seating
Before average weekly church attendance230 people
People returning to attending because of hearing improvements10% or 23 people
Average giving per person (Health Research Funding Org. May 2020)$17.00
Weekly giving increases$390.00
Monthly increases$1,564.00
Annual increases$20,280.00
Over 10 years$208,200.00
Stats are provided from client follow-ups of 5, 10, and 20 years which followed the Biblical method of managing church sound.  The sample size is from 130 of the 400 churches that upgraded their acoustics between 1994-2019.


Not knowing if the acoustics of your church are up to Biblical standards could mean that your church is denying people from attending your church more frequently or from ever returning.

While there are many personal and spiritual reasons for people not attending a particular church, our records show that good acoustics combined with a quality designed and adjusted amplifying sound system constantly translates into higher attendance and tithing. For some churches, the better-quality sound translated into higher giving from people who did not have a hearing issue which was unexpected in our research. These were people who responded to a questionnaire where one of the questions asked, if they noticed the higher quality of sound and whether it affected their tithing. The most consistent response was that when the church board invested in its members by making the worship experience better with quality acoustics, then they felt it was worth investing in a church that took care of its own first, and out of the excess, they could better support others including missions. Church sound is not just an emotional experience; it is a physical experience that directly impacts church attendance and finances.

The Biblical standard for church sound comes from the Bible and specifically in the Story of Solomon’s Temple. In following the story literally, we find that what God designed through the hand of King David is a house of worship that makes it possible for modern sound systems to perform at their highest levels. This makes the room compatible for people with all ranges of hearing loss, and it provides ideal sightlines for people who start to learn lip-reading as their hearing declines with age. Solomon’s Temple is also compatible with ADA (access for Disabilities Act) and other similar laws around the world as the Temple had no steps in the sanctuary, making the worship space wheelchair friendly, even before wheelchairs were invented. Solomon’s Temple doesn’t just set the standard for church sound; it sets the standard for all aspects of church worship and building planning.

You should get your worship space assessed and know it’s acoustical score. If there is room for improvement, have a plan in place when your church can afford to upgrade. On the other hand, some churches have upgraded their acoustics as a last-ditch effort to remain relevant in a local community. All of the churches that made such a desperate move are still open, healthy and have expanded their status in their local community. The knowledge we now know about Solomon’s Temple can benefit your church today.

Then there is the issue of quality versus quantity or loudness. Do people want their sound louder or of better quality? Research suggests that most people choose quality over quantity, hands down. This is especially true for people with hearing problems. While those with hearing loss and using aids to help them hear, a loud sound with distortion renders their hearing aid less capable of help than a clean sound at a lower volume.

Sound systems that have too much distortion at any level are a turn-off because distortion can become painful as the sound levels increase at certain frequencies. Many expensive high-end sound systems are distorting long before reaching their maximum loudness levels. Young people who hear distortion tolerate it better than people over 25 years of age. They often have the mindset that if you turn up the sound system loud enough, the distortion goes away. What they are really doing is desensitizing their ears while damaging their equipment at the same time. Ears have a limited natural way to protect themselves by tightening muscles around the ear canal and drum for short-term excessive noises. For older people, these muscles are not as effective, and distortion becomes intolerable, assaulting the ears at lower volume levels as people age. On the other hand, when the sound quality is high and free of distortion, people of all ages enjoy the louder amplified music, considering that an unamplified congregation can sing over 100dB in a good room without complaints.

The quality of the acoustics, combined with a professionally designed sound system, does impact a church in many ways other than just attendance, tithes and offerings. That impact of sound quality can affect church attendance as little as 8% and some churches up to 18%, and that is just by attending to the physical needs of people. Unfortunately, we have no way of measuring how sound affects people emotionally and spiritually and whether that influences attendance. On the other hand, many movie theatres have upgraded their seating, installed higher-quality speaker systems, add substantial amounts of sound-deadening materials, and other details to enhance the movie viewing experience. Judging from the higher ticket prices people are willing to pay, there is little doubt of an emotional experience tied directly to sound quality.

The secular community has tested how sound affects people numerous times. By simply changing the quality of the sound, it affected how people judge the quality of the picture they saw on the screen. In one well-known test, two identical theaters were made to look the same in every detail. The projectors were the same as well as the popcorn and other items people do when watching a movie. While both theaters had carpeted floors and padded seating, one theatre had very visible acoustical panels and hardware on the walls and ceiling, the other theatre had fake panels that had no acoustical properties but looked identical. After having two groups of people listened to the same three movies over three days in both theatres, the majority of the listeners judged the theatre with the proper acoustical treatment to have a better picture and they remember much more details of the movies. Additionally, some thought the seating was more comfortable, the popcorn and drinks tasted better. Some also asked to see some of the movies again in the theatre where they found the seating more comfortable. As a caveat, the sound in the theatre without the acoustical treatment could not perform as loud, even though both sound systems were properly equalized, so the sound levels were set to a lower volume. The acoustically treated room with bass traps was able to perform to lower frequencies without any distortion which augmented the sound quality. This is a clear example of how sound quality affects people emotionally in a big way.

Finally, can the number of people responding to altar calls, faith healings, being slain in the spirit, speaking in tongues, and experiencing holy laughter be attributed to sound quality? For churches seating less than 400 people, that depends. Churches this size or smaller should have good enough acoustics without a sound system if the worship space meets the Bible’s acoustical standard. When the room cannot support quality sound acoustically, the church will resort to using sound systems to make up for the room’s failure to perform. At best, a typical professionally designed and installed sound system can raise the performance by a mere 10 to 15% of the room’s potential performance. When the room is acoustically upgraded, the room performance often improves 50 to 60%. In a bad room, at best, 1 or 2% of the people will respond to a worship service event. In a good room, you can add another 2 to 3% response to such church activities. Sound quality, along with uniformed sound coverage, will impact more people. Whether this translates into adding more people to the church, that is up to the church leadership and how supportive they are in helping people in understanding what just happened.

For larger churches, the sound system is very much part of the worship service all the time, and without the sound system, large churches cannot have worship, let alone get the responses that they may have. The larger the room, the more critical the acoustical management of the space becomes. In larger churches, sound quality has a larger impact on people responding to church events. The responses double between good and bad rooms.

When people like Billy Graham evangelized in outdoor stadiums, the sound was often fairly good everywhere because there were no surrounding room surfaces creating interfering reflections. Nothing was getting in the way of the spoken words. Even the echoes heard were not a problem because those effects were often 15 to 20dB lower in volume than the direct sounds from the sound system speakers. Seeing thousands of people responding at outdoor events is rarely duplicated percentagewise indoors, where the acoustics do not meet Bible standards. That also explains the higher response levels to outdoor events when no tent is used versus using a tent. When Jesus spoke to the multitudes, it was always outdoors. Except for when Jesus confronted the Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, and scribes in the Temple and Synagogues, almost all of the teachings to the crowds were done outside. Teaching the disciples and close followers was whenever Jesus knew they were ready to listen and save that knowledge for later when the Holy Spirit gave them understanding.

Church sound does have a huge, long-term impact on churches affecting their growth, health, unity, and support by members and the local community. What a church does after they have upgraded their sanctuary, is up to the leadership whether to promote the improvements or fall back and take sound for granted. From our experience, there has been no downside to making existing, and new worship spaces meet the Bible’s standard. True, no acoustics or sound system can save a person’s soul, but the quality of church sound can make a difference in reaching that soul.

In the end, upgrading the acoustics that will automatically get the best performance possible from the sound equipment of a church to help people with hearing issues alone. This should be enough reason for making such improvements. Upgrading to solve the congregational singing issue is another good reason. That solution is in the Bible too. The number one reason to upgrade is to have a church where no matter who walks through the doors in your worship space, when the person hears the Gospel message, there will be no doubts in what they have heard and no excuses in saying I didn’t understand the message. That said, no sound system or acoustics can remove the veil over someone’s eyes. That is the work of the Holy Spirit and whether the person’s heart has been opened to understanding and receiving the truth.
When Jesus taught, people either fled away or were changed by His teaching. Those who were being changed stayed and kept following Him to learn more. Those who fled, Jesus knew that they would never change because they loved or believed in something they thought was better, believed in other false gods or a lie. When that Gospel message competes with unmanaged reflections of sound in a worship space, those bad reflections will interfere with the person’s ability to understand the Gospel message. That is something that no one can measure. The idea here is to remove any possibility of bad acoustics and sound from keeping someone from understanding the message as no one knows the battle that is going through a person’s heart and mind when they are hearing a sermon at church.

Many times, ministers had shared with me how their ministry changed before and after the acoustics were upgraded. Some ministers have said, knowing a certain person who was at a point in their lives that they needed a push to understand salvation, the minister would prepare a sermon to reach that person. Before the upgrade, such efforts often lead to some people going to other churches, where they became born again. Perhaps the sound was better over there, or the minister was better at preaching. Who knows? After the acoustics were upgraded, most of those efforts in tailoring the sermons not only reached the person the minister was praying and preaching for, but sometimes other people responded to the same message. Sound quality can impact the confidence in efforts of the minister and everything else that happens at the front of any church. Who would have ever thought that sound quality in a church could affect the confidence of a minister’s ability to teach?

Sound quality does impact every part of church worship more than what people realize. It affects people physically, emotionally and it impacts how they respond to the Gospel. It is time for churches to get their houses in order and follow what the Bible teaches in something that we should not take for granted. If your church is dedicated as houses of worship to God, shouldn’t it SOUND like it is dedicated to God?

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Bible Flow Chart from Solomon’s Temple to Modern Church Design

Posted by jdbsound on June 4, 2021


Here is an updated flow chart from Old Testament to New Testament, to help lift churches out of limiting themselves to entertainment styles of worship.

I think many people would agree that there is no experience better than singing in a church, with a congregation, and where everyone wants to sing.  Can you imagine singing in a church where 70% or more of the congregation sings all the time!  What a concept to be singing in a room where you know that your voice is contributing along with everyone else’s. Singing in unison or in harmony sounds just as heavenly and exciting—singing in a church where it sounds just as good with or without musical instruments contributing or leading the worship.  Many people dream of such a church sanctuary that performs like this.  Do such worship spaces exist?  Can a church be transformed into having such qualities?  

When only 20 to 30% of a congregation is singing, and the rest are passively swaying to the music, some with hands in the air and others almost dancing on the spot, is that the kind of worship the Bible describes?  Why don’t more people sing?  Is it because of the music, the hymns, the sound system, or could it be because the room is not able to support the kind of congregational singing described in the Bible?  If the room can’t support good congregational singing, that becomes an acoustics issue, and when most churches try to fix their worship spaces, they often kill the room to make the sound system perform better which makes the congregational singing worse – never better.

Evidence shows that it is easier for a church to resort to an entertainment style of worship because the secular community has not demonstrated any method of fixing the congregational singing issue in existing churches, and new churches opening these days are void of such performance qualities.  That then begs the question, is the entertainment style of worship honoring God?

In the Bible, there are no examples of musical instruments leading the singing, rather, the instruments followed the singing of the people.  When there is a worship team performing in most churches, the worship leader prompts the congregation to sing, and the performers who play instruments, follow the lead singers, not the congregation.  Often it is because they can’t hear the congregation singing at all, and they use floor or IEM monitors to follow the lead singers.  The reason the musicians and singings can’t hear the congregation is because of a room problem.  This creates a room full of people passively worshiping rather than actively worshiping.  That is not much different from going to a music concert.  Is worship in music as long or longer than the sermon? 

What does the Bible say about any of this?  God designed a house of worship in the Old Testament.  Why?  Why didn’t God leave it up to David or Solomon to design something that they wanted?  Why was God so heavy-handed and specific to its design.  Was this house of worship to be a relic of the past, something for the future – and something for the present? 

If the temple was to be a relic, then why are there so many specific details?  Why were those details preserved for over 3500 years?  What if in those details are solutions to many of the problems many churches have today – not just with sound problems, but other issues churches struggle with today? 

Study the flow chart. See what happens when 3500 years of history collide with science.  If there are any errors, let me know.  This work is a result of 27 years of fixing and documenting over 300 churches with another 100 plus churches that copied from the 50 church examples posted who informed me of their successes and from studying over1400 churches since 1983.  Visit my blog if you want to know more about the results in following God’s way to design churches and manage sound.

Click to access flow_chart_of_solomons_temple_3d.pdf

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Half Round Diffusers vs. Phase Gradient Diffusers

Posted by jdbsound on May 20, 2021


Many people ask how the panels will look before looking at how they perform when it comes to acoustic solutions.  Here is a short video compare two acoustic treatments that can get similar results and the cost differences without looking at the aesthetics issue. Our experience shows that most church members change their opinions on aesthetics when the acoustical fix does a great job at fixing the room. Congregation members of most churches do agree with one idea. It seems that if the acoustic system fails at improving congregational singing, the panels on the wall have to look good as wall furniture. If the acoustic treatment improves congregational singing, how the panels look doesn’t matter. The aesthetic issues disappear. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below, and we will respond to them right away.
https://youtu.be/7JM8UorDh1Q

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Do Churches that build what they want, get what they need?

Posted by jdbsound on January 19, 2021


When it comes to houses of worship, there is one fundamental question that Christians need to be honest with themselves.  Do we design houses of worship based on what we need or what we want?  The evidence that we can see and hear as a person visits houses of worship is that Churches are designed and built around what they want, and after they move in, they expect the building to give them what they need.  Many Churches seem to spend unlimited amounts of money after they move in to make the room give them what they need, and the results almost always come up short. 

Since the edict of tolerance by Emperor Constantine, there has been a search for the perfect house of worship.  It is supposed to be an ideal place for Christians to gather, hear the scriptures, study the Gospel and sing praises to God.  After building millions of churches around the world since then, that perfect worship space has been elusive.  When it comes to worship space design, it looks like the church is following a world view of thinking, which is similar to those who believe in evolutionism, materialism and atheism.  The evolutionist believes that if we keep building enough churches with random designs, we will eventually get it right over an endless period of time.  The materialist believes that there is a yet to be discovered equation that can explain to us how to create the perfect sound for worship.  The atheist believes that we can design churches without needing God.  Not one of these world view designs has created a building that meets all of the needs of Christian Worship as detailed in the Bible. Yet, every church, church board, and building committee prays to God for help in designing new worship spaces, but they don’t turn to God’s Word for answers as part of the process.  No one is answering the question of whether we are to design for what we need or what we want!

Why are Christians looking for answers to this problem outside of the Bible, the book that changed their lives?  The Bible, a timeless book, has a design for a house of worship that does give the Christian church everything that they need –  yes, even in these modern times.  The Bible teaches that the scriptures are sufficient to give us what we need and not what we want.  God is our loving heavenly Father, who wants to take care of His children.  GOD gave us a blueprint pattern to follow, which was designed by HIM through David in the Old Testament.  It is a perfect space for Christian Worship today. Shouldn’t the Christian community follow the Bible in what we need as a house of worship and leave the idea of what we want to our personal lives?

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What Would Jesus Build?

Posted by jdbsound on December 2, 2020


Jesus would build exactly what he has already designed for us. Christian don’t follow what Jesus designed because most view anything from the Old Testament as something that is irrelevant today. That is from the old covenant. Oh!

In the New Testament, Jesus did not hint or suggest how houses of worship or churches should be designed, or did he? In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Next we have to look at John 1:3  “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” When you read the first 5 verses of the Gospel of John, he is talking about Jesus. Jesus was there for creation, and all things were created through Jesus. Then when you skip to 1 Chronicles 28:19, King David told his son, Solomon, that it was the hand of God that guided him in the design of the temple. God also made him to understand what was being designed. When you put the other parts together, beginning with all things were created through Jesus, and nothing was created without Him, then that means it was Jesus who guided the hand of King David.

As a relic from the past, I can understand why people are so fascinated about Solomon’s Temple. The Ark of the Covenant, the gold on all of the walls and floor, and the gold covering the two giant sized Cherubs over the Ark of the Covenant. It all seems too good to be true, or is it? Since the temple was built and destroyed, many scholars, scientists and historians have been either, trying to validate its existence, seeking something spiritual, or think that there is something supernatural about the building. There are also people waiting in the sidelines for the chance to rebuild another temple. They all have their reasons, but most of them believe that there will be some kind of restoration, and building a third temple will move revelations forward. When man decides to build the third temple in Jerusalem, will not change God’s timing for future events. God will decide that and the unsaved people of the world will have one more chance to change where they will spend eternity.

When you think about it, the second temple, which was built with the best of intentions, was turned into an atrocity and few hundred years later. The temple was symbolizing all of the corruption and enslavement of the Israelites who were beaten into submission by the heavy burden of legalism enforced by the Priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, long before the Roman Empire ruled Israel. When the Romans arrived, the religious leaders simply added some more rules to keep the peace with their new roman masters.

When you put it all together, Jesus designed the temple Solomon built. When you look at the temple from the perspective that Jesus designed it, then you should be asking the questions Why, and does it have relevancy today?

The knowledge of Solomon’s Temple that I am exposing has nothing to do with anything mysterious, supernatural or any mysticism. When Jesus cast the money changers out of the temple, he said “My House” in Matthew and Mark and said My Father’s House in John. Jesus said that the temple was His and His Father’s house. This was a copy, and a poor quality version compared to the first temple. Did Jesus claim this house because it was dedicated as God’s house or did He claim ownership because of where it was located?

For those who have come to realize this truth, Jesus didn’t have to give us a new church design in the New Testament. He already gave us that in the Old Testament, and when Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, I think he was also saying that anything that was designed in the past is a gift for us today. This may seem like a stretch, until you start applying modern science to Solomon’s Temple. You know – the temple Jesus designed.

Wait a second, are you saying that modern churches should be designed like Solomon’s Temple? Are you out of your mind? Who can afford such a building – consider this. When you remove the gold, you have the most compatible worship space to modern Christian Worship. They building method of the temple in modern times is a very affordable building that includes all the space a typical church these days needs. Ok then, are all churches going to look the same? The Holy Place or sanctuary portion of the temple is a roadmap that should not be compromised. How you design the rest of the building is up to you. Why would we want to design such a space? Perhaps it is because it is the ideal space to have the best worship experience possible on earth before going to heaven. It could be the closest thing to heaven we can experience here on earth, but we don’t know for sure because there is no building around that is completely designed that way.

Consider this, most church buildings cannot physically support all of the worship, detailed in the Bible in both the Old and New Testament, however, Solomon’s Temple, without the gold can. (There are already hundreds of churches that are using sound management from the Bible that suggests that Solomon’s design would perform even better.) Jesus had to have designed Solomon’s Temple. Why? So it can lay in a pile of dirt under a Mosque? Why else would Jesus guide the hand of David? What was so important in the design of the temple for the only man in History, David, to be touched by God? Many in the Bible have seen or been touched by Angels, but is was different for King David. The reason why it was Jesus that touched David, is because Jesus had touched people later on in the New Testament. Not even Moses or anyone else had such an experience until Jesus came to us in the flesh years later. Jesus said He came to fulfill the law. He had to, because He wrote them. It is possible that Solomon’s Temple was meant to be a gift for us to use today? Isn’t it time that we study God’s Word from a different perspective and embrace that gift and start experiencing church worship as God wants for us, or have we been too prideful and sinful to recognize His teachings, even when it comes from the Old Testament?

For those of you who think that Solomon’s Temple was a myth, how does a myth fix the performance of sound systems and acoustics in over 400 modern churches today? How many churches have to be fixed before using the methods from the Bible are considered standard practice in the Christian Church Community?

To learn of these secrets, have a look at this PDF file and let me know what you think.

White Paper on the influence of-solomons-temple-2021Download

Joseph De Buglio – in HIS service

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What costs more? Drum Booth or Fixing a Sanctuary?

Posted by jdbsound on June 10, 2020


What costs more?  Or, what will give you the most bang for the buck?  Did you know that for less than the cost of a fully enclosed drum booth, you can fix all of the acoustical issues of a typical sanctuary and not need a drum booth?

Here is a typical drum booth churches are buying.  This booth retails for $4,300.00 and is often on sale for $3,000.00 plus shipping.

Here are all of the sound problems the drum booth solved. Keeps the drums out of the mix, and the people in the front of the church have less noise from the drum kit. The downside to all of this is that often, the drummer plays louder, which leads to many getting tennis elbow.  Plus, hearing damage often occurs.  There is one extra cost to include.  Often drummers need headsets or floor monitors to hear everyone else on stage.  What is often overlooked is that churches should have the drummer sign a liability waiver that the drummer will not sue the church for premature hearing loss and permanent damage to their arms due to tennis elbow.  Drummers often have to play louder in order to hear themselves inside a drum booth or shield.

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Here is an example of a modest church that decided to fix the worship space instead of getting a drum shield or booth.  The material costs, including the paint, were $1,000.00.  Three people over 3 Saturdays completed the installation.  If you look carefully at the photo below, six months later, there is no drum booth around the drummer.  They don’t need one anymore.

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The following is a list of the planned sound issues solved:

  1. No more standing waves
  2. No more deadspots or hotspots
  3. Eliminate flutter echoes often heard off the back walls on stage.
  4. No more excessive bass

Bonus fixes included and no extra cost:

  1. Better speech intelligibility
  2.  Increases the signal-to-noise ratio to 21dB throughout the room
  3. Most of the floor monitor spill was gone
  4. Less sound system distortion
  5. No more bass distortion
  6. Equalized the room to remove excess energy at 400 Hertz -20dB
  7. Went from 18 inches to 38 inches of before feedback,
  8. The room is +/- 1.5dB throughout the room
  9. Makes the room easier for the musicians to perform
  10. Improved sound for people with hearing aids
  11. Before, about 15% of the congregation was singing, now it’s around 60% after 4 months
  12. The sound team is having an easier time mixing.
  13. No drum shield of any kind
  14. Drummers are playing quieter without being asked to.
  15. The drummer can hear everyone on stage with minimum floor monitor support
  16. The pastor is less fatigued after preaching
  17. No more sound complaints if the sound is too loud
  18. The sound system sounds so much better
  19. The bass from the sound system is much more dynamic
  20. The bass from the bass guitar is cleaner and not overpowering any of the other instruments

These are all of the comments various church members, musicians, and the sound team shared after the first 4 months of the acoustical changes.  All they were hoping for was less bass drowning out everyone on stage, eliminating hotspots and deadspots in the audience area and on stage, and stopping the loud reflections off the back wall affecting the musicians and the pastor when preaching.  The diffusers gave them 23 improvements instead of just three of them.  No other custom or “off the shelf” acoustical system can do all of that in one step unless you have unlimited cash at 30 times the cost.

Drum Shield or Fixing a worship space.  For the cost of a drum booth, you can fix up a church seating to 800 with some sweat equity and not need a drum booth and all the supporting technology.

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Half Round Tubes -Performance vs Aesthetics

Posted by jdbsound on June 9, 2020


Diffusers are amazing tools when used properly in a church. They solve a variety of problems in one step. Nothing performs better.

One question that is often asked, can you turn the diffusers sideways?  This is a great question, and the answer is based on our anatomy.  As humans, our ears are on the side of our heads.  This means we get our sound information for direction and clarity of speech on the horizontal plane or side to side. The time difference between our ears give us directional info to identify where a sound is coming from, and for speech, it helps us to focus on someone talking to us.

For diffusers to work correctly and to solve multiple problems in one step, their orientation is critical.  When applied vertically, the diffusers can solve between 10 – 29 acoustical issues in one step. No other acoustical system can do this.undefined

The problems solved or reduced are:

  1. standing waves
  2. deadspots
  3. hotspots
  4. eliminate echoes
  5. eliminate flutter echoes
  6. bass build-up,
  7. speech intelligibility,
  8. increases the signal to noise ratio up to 25dB throughout the room
  9. eliminate or less floor monitor spill,
  10. less sound system distortion
  11. less bass distortion
  12. helps to equalize the bass and mid frequencies
  13. gain before feedback,
  14. even distribution of sound,
  15. elimination of delayed speakers in most cases,
  16. better stereo imaging for stereo sounds (when the right equipment is used)
  17. higher attention span,
  18. makes the room easier for the musicians to perform
  19. improved sound for people with hearing aids
  20. better congregational singing
  21. easier for the sound-person to get an excellent mix
  22. it can reduce or eliminate the need for drum shields or both
  23. makes the room less fatiguing for the minister to preach
  24. fewer to no complaints if the sound system is louder
  25. improves the sonic quality of the sound system
  26. can add up to an octave of clear bass from the sound system
  27. better bass from musical instruments both acoustic and amplified
  28. it helps to make the room more relaxing to hear speech and music.
  29. lowers the sound levels from HVAC systems

If your church has a pipe organ, you will want to know this. One of the most interesting characteristics we have learned with using this method is that for some churches that want to maintain a longer reverberation time, plus have all of the benefits of better speech quality, the half-round tubes can increase speech intelligibility without changing the reverberation time. No other acoustical system can do that. For churches that have a pipe or electronic organ and want better speech quality, this method allows a church to balance the need for music and speech.

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When diffusers are installed horizontally, the list of benefits is much shorter.

  1. standing waves,
  2. bass build-up,
  3. Helps to equalize the bass and mid frequencies
  4. It can add up to an octave of clear bass from the sound system and musical instruments.
  5. Can only reduce echoes, not eliminate them

There is more to these differences.  Because we have ears on the sides of our heads, the rate of control is exponential when the diffusers are mounted vertically.  One of the principals of how these diffusers work is by phase cancellation, which is the same technique as in noise-canceling headsets.  The more random the sounds are scattered, the more the overall energy is canceled from the physics principle of phase cancellation.  As a result, when mounted vertically, the diffusers can get up to 40dB of energy reductions or absorption by air friction.  When you mount the diffusers horizontally, you will only get about 10dB of the overall reduction.

The reason horizontally mounted tubes are less effective is because you are creating large reflective surfaces on the horizontal plane that reflects enough energy back into the room, which it is adding noise back to the listener that in turn, reduces the signal to noise ratio. This cancels almost all of the benefits of using half round diffusers horizontally.

Here is a simple experiment you can do yourself. Find a round container that is at least 7 to 8 inches round.  You can every use a large cooking pot, planter, or roll up some cardboard.  Now say a bunch of words into the side of the container vertically.  After talking for about 15 seconds, turn the container sideways, and talk for another 15 seconds.

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What just happened? Like most people, they notice that when the container was horizontal or sideways, there is a distinct reflection. When you turn the container vertically, the reflection goes away.

This simple experiment demonstrates how powerful the half-round shape is.  In the vertical position, when the half rounds are placed on a wall in groups, you can adjust the spacing between the tubes to determine how much reflection you want, plus shape and equalize the sound at the same time.  This is a compelling way to manage church sound once you understand how effective and simple this system works.

Just as a reminder, for all churches, you have to have a balance between absorption and reflection. The half-round tubes are not always a one and done solution. It has to be part of an integrated system. Typically, for most churches, if you have carpeted floors and padded seating, that is often all the absorption needed. If your church doesn’t have carpet and padded seating, then you will have to add enough absorption to the walls to match what would be on the floor. That is a narrow window to get it just right.

For churches that play their music loud, some people wait in the foyer until the sermon starts or they wear hearing protection during the music portion of the worship service. With the half round system, it allows the sound system to perform 10 to 20dB louder with fewer people needing hearing protection. People turn to hearing protection when there is too much distortion in the sound. A distorted sound is irritating and painful to many. People turn to hearing protection, even when the sound levels are well below 85dBa. When a room is diffused properly with half rounds, it reduces or eliminates bass and mid-range distortion. With distortion out of the way, the sound at 85dBa becomes pleasant and easy to listen to. That pleasantness remains constant over 100dBc. Consider this – in a church with this kind of acoustical system with the right room shape and height, it is common for un-amplified congregational singing to be around 100dBc. When that happens almost no one complains. Why? Because there is no distortion. Half-round diffusers prevent distortion. This transforms any worship space into a music-friendly space at any sound level.

Church acoustics and amplified sound play a significant roll in the health of a church. When sound is good, it helps to grow the congregation. When sound is bad, it gets in the way of providing a clear message, that leads to less attendance which means fewer people tithing. In the end, there is nothing more important than preaching the Gospel in the best clarity possible.

To ultimately answer the question of Aesthetics vs performance, the smart answer is this. When an acoustical system works, people don’t mind how it looks.  If anything, they grow to like it.  When other acoustical systems are used, they often fall short on the expected and promised performance.  As a result, those systems become more like wall furniture and in some cases, artwork.  This drives up the cost of those systems.  Here is the truth most experts and salespeople will never share or admit.  To get the equivalent performance of the half-round tubes as a Do It Yourself project compared to ready-made products, the cost difference is 35 to 1.  A church that fixes their acoustics with cardboard tubes as a DIY including paint and hardware for a 400 seat church may spend $2,000.00 installed.  A ready-made system of equal performance will cost a minimum of 75,000.00 installed.  That is equal to fixing 35 churches of the same size.  Even if the same church buys custom made half-round diffusers, they may spend $20,000.  When compared to other acoustical system costs, that is enough money to fix 3 churches.

There is something to be said about how people react to anything put on the walls.  When people see cloth-covered panels, there is an expectation of good sound.  When that doesn’t happen, people often resign to the notion that the problem is too complicated and too expensive to be properly fixed or that the problem is impossible to fix.  Most people just put up with the problem and accept it as normal and don’t bother with complaining.  That is a lie created by bad information and myths that keep churches from getting the sound they deserve.  Sound excellence is a necessity, not an option.

When an acoustical system works, people don’t mind how it looks.  When it doesn’t work as promised, it has to look amazing.  Do you want a church that looks good and has fewer people attending or a church that is full all the time regardless of how it looks?

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What happens when Church Architecture, Technology, Science, and meets up with the Bible.

Posted by jdbsound on April 24, 2020


The Bible has a lot to say about how a modern church should be designed.  Solomon’s Temple was not just a house for God to dwell in, it was also meant to be a tool to help preach and spread the Gospel in the present.

After reading this article, please pass it on and make comments below.

***  Article: Gods Authority in Church Design ***

This article is the most comprehensive study of King Solomon’s Temple I have ever written.  If you believe John 1:3, then you know who really designed Solomon’s Temple.  King David only penned the details of the new temple.  King David told his son Solomon that it was the hand of God that guided his hand.  What was so important for God to design the temple rather than letting a man design in with whatever came into his thought?

This article gives a stronger case for what the “Inspired Word of God” means.

Winning people to Christ is not a game or something given to chance.  We need all the tools possible to have an impact on this world.  Jesus is Lord, and if your church is dedicated to God, Jesus is Lord over your church building too.

Posted in Church Acoustics, Church Sound Systems | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on What happens when Church Architecture, Technology, Science, and meets up with the Bible.

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