The committee at St. Mary’s Church, Boston Spa, were delighted with their recently refurbished parish room, which gave them more up to date facilities for their Children’s clubs and a variety of other activities associated with the Church. However, it soon became apparent that the room, although spacious and modern, had very poor acoustics which was affecting everyone using it. It was decided that something must be done to treat the echo and reverberation within the room, and Sound Reduction Systems Ltd (SRS) were contacted for their expert advice.
Upon receiving some dimensions and information about surface finishes of the room in question, SRS were able to acoustically model the space and saw that the predicted reverberation was approx. 3 seconds. It was clearly too high for a room of this nature, and it was easy to see why the people using it were experiencing problems. The main cause of the problem, as in many cases, was the amount of harsh, acoustically reflective surfaces within the hall – this was compounded by the angled ceiling which was focusing sound into the middle of the room. SRS recommended a treatment using their suspended Sonata Vario absorbers to get the reverberation time down to approx. 1 second, which in their experience would make the hall fit for purpose and constitute a massive difference in the acoustics of the room.
Upon request, SRS Director Alex Docherty, travelled to site to meet with the committee, discuss the proposed treatment, measure up in greater detail and firm up the quote. After accurately measuring the hall, SRS were actually able to reduce the cost of their original quote. Upon receipt of an order, SRS sent their specialist installer to site within the week. The Sonata Vario panels took a day to install, and on completion of the works, Project Coordinator, Roland Gooch, commented:
“Many thanks for an excellent job speedily carried out, the finished result is remarkable, in a recently refurbished room which was virtually unusable because of the echo has now been totally transformed and once again you can hear every word spoken without an echo, it also looks attractive and actually enhances the appearance of the room. Thanks once again.”
SRS have many years’ experience in treating echo and reverberation problems in church and community halls, along with schools, Soundproofing offices, restaurants and bars - essentially, anywhere there is a large open space with an acoustic problem. Get in touch with them for a free consultation and quote to sort out your noise problem.
You can contact SRS on 01204 380074, email info@soundreduction.co.uk or fill in the 3-Step estimator form here to get your free quote. You can view a gallery of SRS’ work with the Sonata products here. Please visit the Church website at www.stmarysbostonspa.org.uk
