A church hall is one of the most acoustically demanding rooms of any building. It is built to hold many people in one big common room. Every one of those people must be able to hear one man or woman speak in a normal conversational tone. The church hall also plays host to music. Both the preacher and the musicians may or may not be amplified. The church hall may be packed with people from wall to wall, or it could be nearly empty on a day when the weather prevents many people from making it to the service.

One of the main problem with an unamplified church setting is that large crowds make noise whether they mean to or not. They may cough, rustle around in their seats, or whisper to their neighbors all during the sermon. No one person is making much noise, but when you add up the little noises from a church full of people, it can reach a significant level. That wouldn’t be so bad, but everyone still needs to hear the speaker. Unfortunately, the rustlings and whispers of a large group fall squarely within the part of the frequency range where the preacher’s vocals are likely to fall, effectively masking his speech.

If you are designing the building from the ground up, then the shape of the hall can go a long way toward helping to project the voice of the speaker at the front of the hall while subduing the noise of the rest of the people. Think of the ancient Roman amphitheaters as an example. In an indoor amphitheater, you’d also want to taper the room so that it is more narrow at the front. You’d want the ceiling to be installed at an angle to reflect crowd noises away and toward the back of the room.

If you are working with an existing space and insist on keeping it unamplified, your options are few. You can to use acoustically absorbent materials on the church walls and ceiling surrounding the crowd to help quiet the crowd noise, but you’ll need to rely on the preacher’s ability to project his voice over the crowd.

Installing loudspeakers can overcome the problem if they are installed correctly. Ideally, you still want acoustic insulation on the walls to prevent echoes from reducing the vocal clarity in the room. You’ll want every seat to receive more direct sound from a single source than reflected sound. Echoes and distant loudspeakers will make it difficult for the listeners to understand what is being said because they are hearing several different versions of the speaker’s voice with slightly different delay from each source. The key, then is to use many loudspeakers at a lower volume rather than a few at a louder level.

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