Preaching Made Easier At Aldridge Methodist Church

Reverberation of sound can be a common problem in public buildings such as village halls, church halls, dance studios, community centres and the like. Improving the acoustic environment for your users is easier than you think. Accordial offer a 360° solution to measure, define and resolve the problem to enable clients to establish ‘less noisy’ rooms for their clients. The benefit of this service has recently been experienced by Aldridge Methodist Church who had two rooms that were constructed of hard surfaces making the spaces highly reverberant. Firstly, Accordials acousticians measured the reverberation time in the rooms to determine the scale of the problem. This was followed by a detailed report which not only highlighted the present situation but also made recommendations into how the acoustic environments could be significantly improved. A target reverberation time was set for the intended use of the rooms against established standards and recommendations were made accordingly. These recommendations were based on introducing Accordials cost effective Soundflex fabric wrapped panels which are both aesthetically pleasing and are of high performance. The resulting installation was based on a series of symmetrically positioned SoundFlex panels to the ceiling and upper walls. The true test was in the measurement of the reverberation time after this acoustic treatment had been applied and the result is truly impressive. The reverberation of sound has been reduced in the rooms by a significant level and in-line with the targeted goal. Users of the hall commented: "The Little Fishes Playgroup met in the back room on Friday and said it made an amazing difference" "On Saturday I ran a coffee morning and spoke across to friends without having to raise my voice" "Sunday after service people were saying how much better it was" The end result is a working Church that has facilities that can better provide for the activities it promotes (coffee mornings, Scout groups, youth clubs etc.) by creating an acoustic environment that compliments the needs of its users.