Acoustic Treatment

Acoustic Treatment is applying sound or noise reducing products to floors, walls, and ceilings to control sound and create a more pleasant environment.  Many large spaces such as gyms, pools, cafeterias, and multi-purpose rooms may have hard surfaces that may be easy to clean, but reflect noise and create problems acoustically.  Garbled speech, echo, slap back and other issues arise in these types of spaces when acoustics are not addressed.  An acoustical treatment for these spaces would be to add the correct amount of acoustical absorption to absorb unwanted, reverberated noise.

Flat, hard surfaces such as concrete block, drywall gypsum board, and metal decking reflects sound.  When a large space is constructed of these materials, sound will reflect off of multiple surfaces and reverberate throughout the space.  The amount of time it takes for the sound to reduce by 30 dB is called the reverberation time.  This time is used as a gauge to provide an idea of how much reverberation is in the space.  For any room other than performance spaces, above 3 second reverberation time is high. 

All building materials have  properties of acoustical absorption measured in sabins at third octave frequencies.  Using the length x width x height of a space to determine the room volume and calculating the total acoustical absorption in the room using the total square footage of each building material multiplied by the acoustical absorption value in sabins provides you with the current reverberation time of the space.  Next you calculate how much acoustical absorption needs to be added to the room to bring the reverberation time down to acceptable levels.  We use the square footage number as a base line for design of the acoustic treatment.  For help in designing as acoustical treatment for your space please call eNoise Control.