Acoustics & Sound Masking

Open offices fail for one reason more than any other: everyone hears everything. Sound masking adds a precisely tuned, barely noticeable background sound that raises the ambient level just enough to make speech unintelligible a few desks away.

We design masking systems zone by zone, with private offices, open areas and corridors each set to their own level, then verify performance with measurements once the system is tuned.

For healthcare providers, speech privacy isn't a comfort feature — HIPAA expects oral privacy safeguards, and a waiting room that can hear the intake desk is a compliance problem. Law, finance, and HR spaces carry the same confidentiality stakes without the statute.

We assess speech privacy in the spaces where it matters, then combine masking, isolation, and layout recommendations to reach the privacy level each room actually requires.

Mechanical rooms, rooftop units, plumbing, and the office espresso machine all inject noise and vibration into spaces where people are trying to think.

We identify the sources and design the fixes — isolation, treatment, and placement — balancing noise levels, room acoustics, and vibration across the building.

Some rooms need to keep sound in — boardrooms, studios, HR offices; others need to keep it out — focus rooms next to break areas. Isolation is about construction: walls, doors, penetrations, and the flanking paths everyone forgets.

We specify isolation targets room by room and work with your architect and GC to hit them without over-building walls that don't need it.

Overhead audio does triple duty: paging people, notifying everyone in an emergency, and setting the tone with background music. One well-designed speaker system can do all three; three bolted-on systems do none of them well.

We design PA, paging, and music playback as one zoned system with clear intelligibility everywhere it matters.