3 Reasons Why You Should Consider Sound Masking

Combat Workplace Chatter with Innovative Technology Solutions

The open-concept office design has taken the modern office by storm. Mazes of cubicles and long tables filled with computer workstations have become the dominant office style for many businesses. Without floor-to-ceiling sound barriers, the office chit-chat, coworkers’ coughs and sniffles, typing sounds, and computer notification dings can overwhelm the brain of even the most dedicated and focused employees. 

With sound masking, employers can provide a resourceful tool for cutting through office chatter. At PCD, we pride ourselves on innovative technology solutions spanning boardrooms, classrooms, and even performance venues. Keep scrolling below to learn three reasons you should consider sound masking functionality for your business in Santa Rosa or the surrounding California areas.

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1. Help Employees Focus

With sound masking systems, your employees can begin focusing on their tasks better than ever. Unlike white noise, which has its own sound profile and can become a distraction by itself, sound masking analyzes the ambient sound of a space and adds an opposing frequency of sound. This opposing frequency flattens the chatter, essentially nullifying it, and allows the brain to focus on conversations, phone calls, and work tasks. By raising the stable background noise of a space in a controlled way, sound masking technology doesn’t add additional noise distraction.

2. Reduce Speech Intelligibility

In Valtteri Hongisto’s 2008 case study on the modernized, landscaped office environment, noise - especially speech - reduces the performance of cognitively demanding tasks. This means that despite being heralded as a collaborative dream, open-concept offices can have the opposite effect. The muffled sounds of the meeting next door can, unfortunately, take center stage during an important sales presentation in the boardroom. 

Avoid this unfortunate scenario by reducing speech intelligibility with an in-ceiling or in-flooring sound masking system. Our team can adjust the masking frequency to suit the unique acoustical needs of your meeting spaces, so your presentations are never derailed by the high-pitched laughs of the group in the adjoining room again.

3. It’s a Comprehensive Solution

Simply adding a white noise machine next to the conference room entry or on a cubicle desk won’t solve your company’s ambient noise issues; it would only add to the noise! Instead, with a sound masking system designed by the AV experts at PCD, you have a comprehensive noise solution that encourages productivity, limits distractions, and resolves issues throughout your office space. Our team will assess your commercial space to determine if a direct or indirect sound masking design would work best, then install the speakers in a grid-like formation in your building. Frequencies and volume are adjustable from an easy-to-use online dashboard, too, so there’s no need to call our team back onsite for fine-tuning. 

Your Commercial AV Partner

Whether installing a sound masking system in your office building or adding projectors and projection screens to your house of worship, PCD is here for you! Chat with us at the bottom of your screen, or connect with us here to start a conversation about your project ideas.