CASE STUDY | MUNICIPAL
City of Wylie Municipal Offices: 9 dB Less Background Noise
City offices fill up with a lot of small sounds at once. We put acoustic panels on the ceilings and walls of the City of Wylie offices and took 9 dB of background noise and 2.9 seconds of echo out of the space.
You don't need one loud source to have a loud office. Small sounds add up.
THE SPACE
An Office Where Small Sounds Add Up
Background noise is the hum of a working office: voices, phones, keyboards, ventilation. No single sound is the problem. Together they make it hard to concentrate and hard to hear the person across the desk.
The numbers say the rooms held that sound too. When we finished, 2.9 seconds of echo were gone.
What was getting in the way:
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Background noise. Many small sources, all at once.
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Echo. Sound that lingers keeps adding to the noise.
Ceilings and walls reflect most of what an office makes. Cover them.
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THE RESULT
9 dB Less Background Noise
9 dB background noise reduction | 2.9 sec reverb reduction
Nine dB is just under the 10 dB drop that sounds about half as loud to most people. Reverb is how long sound hangs in a room after someone speaks. Less reverb means clearer speech.
TECHNICAL INSIGHTS
FAQ
What is background noise?
It is the steady mix of voices, phones, keyboards and ventilation in a room. In the City of Wylie offices it dropped 9 dB.
What is reverb?
Reverb is how long sound hangs in a room after someone speaks. Echo came down 2.9 seconds in these offices.
Do acoustic panels work in an office?
Yes, for noise inside the room. They absorb sound so it stops bouncing. They do not block sound from the next room.