How to Eliminate Echo & Improve Privacy in a Glass-Walled Conference Room
IF YOUR STUNNING GLASS CONFERENCE ROOM ECHOES, HERE'S WHAT WE CAN DO
It’s not hard to see why glass-walled conference rooms are popular, especially in modern office spaces in Dallas. They're stylish, sleek, and open up the floor for a collaborative, transparent environment. But there’s one downside to glass rooms that all business owners realize eventually. Glass walls can produce such strong echoes that you might feel like you’re working inside a cave.
Not only do glass rooms echo, but as your voices bounce off the walls, the rest of the office will hear your conversations. This is not only distracting but may make your staff feel they have little privacy when in the conference room.
If you recently moved into or built a glass conference room, or if you’re planning to install glass walls, acoustic treatments can go a long way to reduce echo and loud voices. As a commercial AV consultant serving the Dallas, TX, area, we’ll share three ways to reduce echo and excess noise in your glass-walled conference rooms.
SEE ALSO: Making Conference Room AV More User-Friendly
REDUCE REVERB BY ABSORBING SOUND WAVES
Sound energy contained in a room is called reverberation. Sound waves bounce against walls and hard surfaces repeatedly until they escape, decay, or are absorbed. Reverberation is troublesome for teleconferencing and video calls since it will make your voice sound distant and hard to understand. In situations like this, we use soft absorptive materials specifically designed to reduce echo.
Many businesses use wall-mounted fiberglass acoustic panels to absorb excess sound. But if your conference room only has one non-glass wall, that won’t be enough. Freestanding acoustic pillars can be placed in corners to trap sound waves and enhance soundproofing. Carpeting, acoustic ceiling tiles, furnishings, and even plants can help absorb unwanted echoes in your workspace.
Reducing excess sound doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the sleek look of your conference space. Custom-printed acoustic panels and fabric-wrapped absorbers blend seamlessly with modern offices, ensuring your space is both functional and aesthetically appealing.
SCATTER NOISE WITH DIFFUSION
Another way to improve a glass-walled room’s acoustics is through diffusion. Diffusion materials don’t absorb sound and instead scatter sound waves, so they spread more evenly across the room. This helps reduce reverberation and echo, making the acoustics in your conference room more pleasant.
Diffusion installations often take the form of wall or ceiling panels with geometric or angular shapes. If you’re building a new office, you can plan diffusion into the architecture with curved walls or uneven surfaces like brick or stone on the non-glass wall. If your non-glass wall has limited space due to windows, bookshelves and other large, angled furnishings can also help diffuse the sound in your space.
INCREASE PRIVACY THROUGH SOUND MASKING
Another way to contain sound in a glass meeting room is with sound masking. Sound masking speakers play ambient background noise to filter out speech. The noise produced by sound masking speakers is similar to white noise; however, it is tuned to the same frequency as human speech. As a result, voices and conversations are more difficult to understand at a distance.
The addition of sound masking to your Dallas office space can help improve the privacy of your conference rooms while reducing distractions for the rest of the floor. We recommend installing sound-masking speakers outside the glass conference room to mask conversations inside. That way, everyone can enjoy privacy and get work done while enjoying your beautiful, modern office.
Are you interested in acoustic treatments for your business in or near Dallas, TX? Contact Texadia Systems here to find the perfect solution for your space.
