Seattle, WA (July 20, 2026)—Grace Church has a unique, airy design that brings the outdoors inside through massive banks of windows and extensive wood framing. Central to the sanctuary is a center aisle that functions as a flexible performance area for liturgy, music, weddings, and special events. That design, however, imposes several audio challenges, from the many hard reflective surfaces, to the fact that the pastor regularly walks and speaks throughout the center space, making consistent coverage and feedback control both crucial and not easy.
When it came time to upgrade the audio system, integrator Viation was faced with improving intelligibility throughout the sanctuary while preserving the visual character of the space by keeping the eventual system as visually discreet as possible. With that in mind, Viation worked with 1 Sound to develop a solution tailored specifically to the church’s architectural and acoustic challenges.
John Wilson, president of Viation, admitted, “They wanted a high-performance sound system that was invisible.” In answer to that need, Viation developed a custom design approach centered around Cannon C8 point sources with custom-matched wood finishes.
Rather than using larger loudspeakers with longer throw characteristics, the system was designed as a distributed deployment using multiple compact loudspeakers placed strategically throughout the sanctuary. This approach helped minimize reflections and excessive reverberance within the highly reflective architectural environment while maintaining intelligibility across the seating areas and center aisle. The controlled dispersion characteristics of the Cannon Series also helped keep energy focused on listeners rather than exciting the vaulted ceilings and glass surfaces unnecessarily.
Now the system is centered around Cannon C8 loudspeakers along both sides of the sanctuary, spaced approximately 15 feet apart and mounted along the exterior of the beams with only a minimal reveal. Angled carefully to match the rafters and optimize coverage, the loudspeakers visually disappear into the architecture while maintaining consistent sonic performance throughout the room. Additional adjacent spaces within the church utilized Cannon C5 loudspeakers, while Powersoft Quattrocanali amplification supported system deployment throughout the installation.
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The distributed approach also allowed the system to be time-aligned so that speech and music maintain a natural sense of localization throughout the sanctuary, helping listeners feel connected to the person speaking rather than to the loudspeaker system itself.
Despite early discussions around adding subwoofers, the final deployment relied solely on the Cannon C8 loudspeakers for low-frequency support. According to Wilson, the result provided more than enough low-end extension for the room while maintaining balance within the highly reflective environment.
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Following the first service with the new system, the impact was immediately apparent. “One of the parishioners came up and said it was the first time he’d been able to hear a sermon the entire time he’d been going there for like 10 years,” Wilson shared.
