Noise Management through Sound Masking
Shared workspaces, the doctor’s office waiting room, picking up your prescription at the pharmacy counter, different environments have different challenges with noise. Offices need to be productive, while hospitals need to protect patient privacy and encourage a restful recovery. For every unique acoustical challenge, Lencore has a suite of custom, affordable sound masking solutions to increase productivity, enhance privacy, and create a sense of overall comfort in your daily life.
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There are several different ways to manage or reduce noise in an environment. Let’s start with the ABCs.
A = Absorption
Sound waves bounce off hard surfaces and are absorbed by soft surfaces. When you think of a room with good acoustics, it usually means the room has a warm sound without a lot of echo. This is achieved by introducing acoustical panels or batting, often engineered in precise locations on the walls and/or ceilings to absorb sound waves. If you’ve ever been in a recording studio or a well designed concert hall, you’ve likely seen these acoustic panels and noticed the bright sound of the room. In an office, the fabric on cubicles is intended to offer some level of sound absorption.
B = Blocking
Sound waves are blocked by walls, windows and other non-porous surfaces. During the pandemic, you likely experienced a plexiglass divider between you and the cashier at the grocery store. While the glass was intended to keep germs from being transmitted, it also had the unintended consequence of interrupting communication. As workers head back to the office, there are fewer walls and more shared workspaces limiting the ability for sound waves to be blocked by divider walls and offices. Plus, remember sound waves bounce off hard surfaces, so where walls and windows exist inside an environment, sound tends to echo and creates more noise.
C = Covering (or Canceling)
Covering noise and canceling noise both achieve the desired effect, but through slightly different means. When a coworker at a cubicle is talking on the phone, other team members in the area can hear the conversation, creating a speech privacy concern and a distraction for the unintended audience. Sound masking technology introduces a comfortable, constant sound matched to ambient voice frequencies and volume levels, which makes that cubicle conversation unintelligible to coworkers outside of the immediate area. Sound masking works great on its own or in combination with noise absorbing and blocking materials. This technology is used to provide a uniformly comfortable, private, and productive environment.
Noise canceling technology introduces counter-waves, engineered to break incoming sound waves from being heard. The challenge with noise canceling is it can only be achieved effectively in very small spaces. This is why noise canceling headphones work well. They combine all three of the ABCs. They include foam-filled absorption material on the perimeter of the ear cup, a hard plastic material to block sound on the outside of the ear cup, and an active emitter which sends out counter-waves in the immediate vicinity of the ear cup. This technology works great for individuals on the go, but can be uncomfortable to wear for long, and can be dangerous to the wearer’s long term hearing, just like any other headphones.
Lencore’s state of the art sound masking technology focuses on algorithms designed to cover noise and provide privacy to even large facilities, while being safe and effective to use in all environments all day, every day.
Keeping noise out of your space is only part of the equation. You want to ensure you have an environment that fosters focus, productivity, and privacy, balances the right level and types of sound, provides the appropriate mood, and enables clear communication. Lencore’s noise management solutions can do all of this, and more.
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