Latest Posts
Event Hall Acoustical Problem
“We have a Band/Music Venue issue. We just opened a music club with great atmosphere, sound, and lighting. It is all going well. Problem is that we are getting too much sound bleed into the upstairs. What is best way for me to get a handle on this?” Sound is always going to travel via the path of least resistance […]
Computer Lab Acoustics
Computer lab acoustics are always interesting, and almost always a problem. My first semester of college was back when computers were new, and kids carried around 5 1/2″ floppy disks that could hold about five words each. The school that I attended converted an old gymnasium into a computer lab, and named it “The Bee Hive” because of the constant hum and buzz of the old machines. You could almost feel the energy of the noise when you entered the building. Since then, computer labs are a little different, but still amazingly the same […]
Acoustical Doors & Door Seals
A one-percent air gap (1/8″ gap along the floor) around the door will leak up to 30% of the noise from one side of the door to the other. The automatic door bottom will lower a neoprene gasket to the floor. The door bottom works as a self-leveling unit so the gasket that is near the hinge will hit the ground first, and the rest will level to the ground as the door closes further and further. […]
Educational Acoustics/Acoustics 101
Acoustics is not as hard as people generally make it out to be. Reverberation (echo) is simply a relationship between the size of the space and the surfaces that make up the space. The intent of this article is to help you start to understand how that relationship works and how to help or eliminate an echo problem […]
Restaurant Acoustics
Restaurant acoustics and sound reduction in restaurants is often one of the trickiest situations that we are asked to fix. We have to consider the aesthetics of the room, the availability of open wall or ceiling space, health code concerns, budget for the project, and trickiest of all, finding the right number of panels to install to “take the edge off” but not make the place sound like a coffin […]
Soundproofing an Office
We receive a lot of calls and E-mails from people that experience a significant amount of sound transmission from one office to another. It seems to be a problem that haunts thousands of office buildings across the country. Very commonly, people ask how to treat the common wall which is not always the problem. This surprises a lot of people. They think that sound proofing the office has to be done with a wall treatment, but in most cases, it is the ceiling that is the weak spot. The most important thing about sound and sound proofing to keep in mind is that the noise ALWAYS follow the path of least resistance. The sound is going to find the “weak spot” in the room and leak directly from that spot. With that in mind, it is time to track down the path or paths of least resistance […]
Office Acoustics
So you’ve got office noise problems, huh? Well I have something for you… The acoustic in the office was truly amazing. No matter how soft you spoke, your conversation could be heard amazingly well up to 30-40 feet away […]
How to Quiet a Noisy Air Conditioner
As the weather heats up, and summer gets into full swing, we are getting more and more calls as well as E-mails about air conditioning compressors bothering home owners as well as neighbors. The problem can be fixed fairly easily and inexpensively, but either way, it needs to be done correctly […]
Dance Studio Next to Office Space
Recently, I was asked to meet a few potential clients at an office building in a neighboring city. It was explained to me that a dance studio and an office shared a common wall. I have worked on similar situations in the past, and it is always a bit scary – simply due to the drastically different uses of the spaces. The problem that existed is that when the building owner was showing a few potential office renters the space, the dance studio was having a class. The sound transmission was an instant turn -off to a potential renter – and rightfully so […]
Well/Pool Pump Noise
“I am looking for a product that can be installed in an outdoor environment which is exposed to the weather 365 days per year. I need to deaden the harmonic whine that is emitted from our well pump motor.” We have two exterior rated acoustical panels. Both of which need a structure or a substrate to support them – they are not free standing […]
