As most businesses are willing to invest in technological advancement and the appearance of the workplace, sometimes the soundscape can stay neglected for a long time. It is critical to understand what leads to distractions, a noisy environment, increased stress at the fear of being overheard, privacy issues and the inability to hear and understand the speech.
By careful acoustic design of your meeting room, or by roping in expert integrators, you can leverage their experience at improving workplace communication and the office soundscape while building a welcoming and productive workspace.
What causes poor acoustics in a space?
Before we delve into the benefits and solutions to improve the meeting room acoustics, let’s start by identifying the key areas and surfaces that lead to poor acoustics.
The easiest way to check for poor acoustics is to clap. If you hear a reverb/echo/hollow sound, the room’s acoustics are bad.
· Hard reflective/impenetrable surfaces like large screens, magnetic whiteboards, polished wood or concrete floor, glass walls and steel ceilings, that readily reflect sound.
· Distracting ambient noise from a high traffic area adjacent to your office location.
· Noises due to the movement of colleagues passing by the conference room or seated just outside.
· The architectural design of the room or office itself. There may be an adjoining wall with another company or a department.
Acoustic considerations offer benefits in addressing issues related to sounds
How can better acoustic design help? For a fruitful discussion and less fatigue, speech intelligibility and acoustic absorption must be optimal in a meeting room. Proper acoustic solutions that are implemented with the help of expert AV integrators help reduce sound reflections from the walls and ceilings, while also cutting down reverberation and noise level.
Your first instinct may be to invest in high-end AV equipment, to improve acoustics, but it may not necessarily be the right solution. There is a wide choice of acoustic solutions that are striking or discreet, and popular as best-selling solutions for acoustic improvement, nevertheless seeking the help of expert AV system integrators is a more sensible thing to do.
They have a better understanding of the complex combination of the sound produced and have the sound knowledge to help you with proper advice, guidance and implementation. Besides, the experts understand that the carefully curated solution should be both functional and aesthetically pleasing to the layout of the meeting room.
Smart and effective acoustic applications also enhance speech privacy (by shielding the sound with acoustic barriers like dividers), improve focus, lead to better usability of the room and qualitative collaborations.
Altay Khaspoladov-AV solutions expert
