The Mary Magdalen Mission Center has an oval-shaped sanctuary that was experiencing extremely poor speech and music clarity. Their Worship services are traditional leaning (spoken word, piano and congregational singing) with the occasional contemporary music service.  

Parabolic Focusing – A primary feature of the sanctuary are 4 large curved walls (two at the front and two at the rear). Concave, uniform, curved surfaces are very problematic in room acoustics. Curved surfaces “focus” sound reflections to a point, akin to a magnifying glass focusing light passing through the curved lens.

If you’ve ever stood in the center of dome, you’ve probably experienced a few interesting acoustic anomalies. First is the “whisper” effect, where sound produced near the foci of the dome/curve, is amplified, allowing a faint whisper to be heard throughout the room (and conversely, all the sound produced in the room focused to this point, causing a cacophony of reflections at the center foci) . Another is the “creep” effect, where sound produced at the edge of arc, travels along the curved surface, losing little energy until it reaches the opposite end of the arc.

Not only do the hard wall and floor surfaces of the Mary Magdalen Mission Center contribute to excessive sound buildup, but the parabolic focusing from the curved wall surfaces caused extreme comb filtering (pockets of destructive and constructive interference as a result of overlapping waves), exacerbating intelligibility issues.  These conditions contribute to an acoustically uncomfortable environment in which music is hard to perform and enjoy while speech is also difficult to understand.

To significantly reduce excessive reverberation and destructive reflections, we recommended installing approx. 1200 SQFT of 2” back-scored Hi Impact Sonora Wall Panels across the rear wall surfaces. We specified kerfed/back-scored Hi Impact Sonora Wall Panels that can “bend” to fit curved surfaces and come with a high-density adder that improves acoustic performance and durability. View Sonora Panel information on our website.

https://www.acousticsfirst.com/sonora-wall-panels.htm

Reverb Predictions – Worship spaces of this size with a blend of traditional and contemporary music should have a reverb time below 1.6s. We entered the room’s dimensions and construction materials and made a prediction of reverb times before and after treatment. In addition to controlling distracting echoes and comb filtering, installing approx. 1248 SQFT of 2” Hi Impact Sonora wall panels across the rear wall reduced reverberation by approx. 35%, significantly improving speech intelligibility and music clarity.