The Sono Tube Fix!

Blake Engel, All Church Sound

What's this picture have to do with church sound and acoustics? Take a closer look.....

See that round tube around the base of the light post? That's a cardboard concrete form tube (Trade name SonoTube). Such tubes are used to form perfectly round pillars of concrete for installation of lights, street signals, deck posts, and many other building needs. Normally such tubes are cut off once the concrete is set--but we were lucky enough to find a location where they hadn't been taken off yet.

This concrete form tube can be turned into a very inexpensive, easy to make acoustical bandaid for church santuaries. While the concept is simple, knowing how to correctly use them takes quite a bit of knowledge.

The outside surface of the Sono Tube is an arc. This arc will disperse sound in different directions when it hits it. Sound hitting a flat wall will be reflected back in one primary direction--this is what causes so many problem echoes and standing wave problems. Turning a flat wall into one that will diffuse sound can turn an otherwise poor sounding room into a great sounding one.

While there are many products available that do similar work, this is by far the most inexpensive way to do it for even the churches that can't afford to do anything at all. Other forms of treatment can solve a number of other problems in a room, but if you mainly need diffusion and don't have $20,000.00 or more to fix the room, this is a possible solution.

At a recent training seminar.... In the 450-seat church we met in, we improved the acoustics of the room for less than $50. The 4-foot lengths of Sono tubes can be seen (temorarily mounted to 1x2's leaning against the wall) on the two parallel walls. While very little of the wall was treated, EVERYONE noticed a very audible change in the performance of the room. In fact, we got the following comment from one man who was able to only attend Saturday.

(when he came, the tubes were already in place from the Friday demonstration.) "When you removed the sono tubes from the parallel walls halfway through on Saturday, I had trouble understanding and hearing the presenters." How's that for a testimony?!

At the same seminar....In a side room where the church was renovating a meeting room, we brought the Sono Tubes on-a-stick into the room while a few people were in the room talking and making other noises in the room. Bringing in even just 5 tubes made a noticable difference; the more tubes added, the better the room sounded.

While these method are cheap, the reason they work is because an expert knew how sound works, how Sono Tubes work with sound, knew what sounds the Sono Tubes could correct, knew the quantities needed and where to put them. If they are not placed in the right location and you don't have the right quantity and spacing, you could easily make the mistake that Sono Tubes would work better for kindling for a fireplace. Most churches cost over a million dollars and sound like they are worth of only a bulldozer's affection. $3,000 of consulting and a few hundred dollars spent on Sono Tube can transform most churches in treasured recital halls good enough for any Symphony to hold concerts in. How do you really put a price on that?

In this example, we showed a group of church sound techs how the use of just two four foot long 12" diameter Sono Tubes cut in half can make a dramatic difference in the sound quality of even a $19,000.00 piano. The amplitude was increased in the lower three octaves, and the overall clarity improved a noticable amount for 90% of the attendees. (Cost of unfinished Sono tubes: $6.00)

"Simple diffusers can make a big difference.
Did you know that barrel or outround diffusers have more that one acoustical property? When the diffusers are all the same size there is scattering of sound energy, limited phase cancellation of bass energy, greater energy cancellation of mid range sounds and it keeps the high frequency energy needed for music and speech clarity. You can add additional control by changing the spacing, sizes and patterns of the diffusers. As a result, with 8" to 24" diffusers there are over 2000 basic combination and 10,000 sub combinations. When you use larger diffusers the combinations increase exponentially. The calculations for figuring out the combinations are limited to frequency. There are no calculations for rate of absorption. Experience, physical modeling and trial and error methods are the only ways to predict the outcome. Computer modeling can not predict the results of diffusion. " (EdB Sound, Acoustics, Inc.)