The Pinellas County’s Sheriff’s Office was struggling with a number of noise complaints. Among other things, they were concerned with the sound privacy in interview rooms, to ensure that interviews were conducted in a confidential manner. When one suspect is able to hear anothers’ alibi over the wall, it makes the job of getting to the truth more difficult! Even with high-CAC ceiling tiles, flanking is expected through ACT ceilings to the adjacent spaces if the walls don’t go to deck.
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So they contacted Commercial Acoustics. After an initial site visit, we prepared a solution that would provide significant speech privacy without the need for a major construction budget. By pairing sound masking speaker systems with additional soundproofing wall membranes, we were able to increase the STC of the walls while also masking background noise.
Municipal Sound Masking
The combination of the two approaches yielded impressive results: primarily, that officers no longer needed to worry about being overheard while they worked (and were not distracted by other conversations). While the sound masking system was installed, tuned, and implemented in a single day, the soundproofing membrane for the walls required an additional several weeks to complete each of the 10 interview rooms. This is a level of soundproofing that many law enforcement agencies do not require, but which provides superior soundproofing for a wide array of applications.
For many clients, the benefit of sound-masking cannot be over-stressed. The highly-tuned speakers provide an exceptional ability to mask background noise, and thereby reduce the “dynamic range” that so many office employees find extremely distracting. The speakers are hidden from view, concealed behind the ACT. They do not interfere with voice recordings, and actually enhance the speech privacy over phone conversations. Affordably priced, at approximately $1.00-$2.50/square foot, it can make the difference between a noisy workspace and an acoustically-treated office.
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