Sound Masking
The Basics
How Sound Travels
To understand sound masking, it helps to know how sound (a form of energy) travels, and the ABCs of controlling sound. To illustrate these principles, we've put together a series of diagrams. Click here to view them.
In sum: It's impossible to absorb or block all the sound around us because some will diffract over and around partitions or travel through penetrations in walls or ceilings. Thus, sound that isn't absorbed or blocked must be covered (or masked). And it can't be masked by just any sound — it must be masked by an electronically engineered masking system that meets certain performance criteria, including the preferred criteria for speech privacy.
Sounds Like . . .
The best way to begin to understand what sound masking is by understanding what it's not. For example:
- Sound masking should NOT be noisy or intrusive in any way (unfortunately some of our competitor's systems can be noisy and instrusive.)
- Sound masking does NOT make work areas "louder." It actually makes them more private and comfortable.
- Sound masking systems are NOT the same as "white noise."
Masking systems DO produce a sound — and that sound should be barely perceptible. It should be non-directional and harmoniously uniform throughout a given space.
The random, ambient sound from a masking system gently overrides the sound of both incoming speech and other distracting noises, making the work environment more private and comfortable.
Most masking systems have a sound source, an amplifier, an equalizer, and speakers to carry the sound. In Lencore's Spectra™ masking systems, a microprocessor-controlled, digital broadband sound (called E-Sound™) is produced. This sound spectrum is custom-tuned and then amplified through individual speakers installed above the dropped ceiling. The Spectra™ speakers are directed upward so that the E-Sound™ filters evenly down to the space below (similarly to the way ambient lighting works), gently raising the background sound level. This method disperses the masking sound without phasing or creating hot or cold spots (see How Sound Masking Works at the left for more details).
