Church Sanctuary AV & Acoustic Treatment
West Middleton Lutheran Church
HD display upgrade and acoustic treatment that transformed an unintelligible sanctuary into a clear, worshipful space — without replacing a single piece of audio equipment.
Two problems. One root cause hiding in plain sight.
West Middleton Lutheran Church was struggling on two fronts. Their projection system was delivering an SD signal in an era where HD is the baseline expectation — and natural light flooding the sanctuary was washing out the screen, making visuals difficult to see during services.
The audio situation was worse. Congregants and leadership were experiencing low intelligibility — the kind of muddiness that makes spoken word exhausting to follow. The assumption was aging equipment: an old soundboard, old cables, old gear past its prime.
When Production Studio 29 arrived for the free site survey, however, the real culprit became clear immediately. The sanctuary's architecture — high ceilings, tile floors, and bare drywall walls — was generating a long reverberation time (RT60). Sound wasn't dying naturally; it was bouncing and stacking until it turned into unintelligible noise. No new soundboard was going to fix that.
From washed-out projection to crisp HD displays.
The projection system was replaced with two 85" displays — a solution purpose-built for environments with strong ambient light. The installation utilized conduit already in place from the church's computer sources, running SDI cable to the first display and splitting the signal cleanly to the second.
The result was immediate and dramatic: a sharp, bright HD image that holds up under the sanctuary's natural light conditions, with no complicated workarounds and no signal degradation.
Before
After
Treating the room, not the equipment.
Rather than recommend a soundboard replacement that would have done nothing for the underlying problem, Production Studio 29 designed a custom acoustic treatment layout for the sanctuary — one that addressed the RT60 without making the space feel sterile.
The church was presented with multiple color options and selected a neutral palette that complemented their existing color scheme. Panels were positioned to achieve approximately 20–25% wall coverage, which proved to be the right balance: enough absorption to dramatically improve intelligibility, while retaining sufficient natural liveliness for singing to feel full and organic.
Before
After
In their words
"Our church contacted Production Studio 29 to evaluate our sanctuary. We had been experiencing audio problems for a long time, but we could never determine the root cause. It turned out that the most beneficial thing was to add acoustical panels, something we would never have thought of. Jason came up with a design, worked with us to choose colors and placement, and installed them in our sanctuary.
The sound is now much crisper, and the spoken word in particular is easier to understand. We have benefited from Jason's technical expertise, but he also helped us explain the options and manage expectations with our congregation. Change can be difficult, and Jason helped us navigate that as well."
Stephanie Mueller — West Middleton Lutheran Church