Why noise control doesn’t seem to prevent noise complaints Noise control engineering addresses the physics of noise generation at the source and travel to the destination, transmission into a nearby…
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STC: Sound Transmission Class or SPEECH Transmission Class? The venerable STC rating is used to classify and rank-order partition sound isolation performance. A high rating, especially above 50, is widely…
The “Soundproof” Myth My first wristwatch when I was a kid was a “waterproof” Timex. The TV commercial even featured one strapped to a speedboat propeller. In spite of the…
dBA: One size does not fit all Perhaps the greatest confusion in the popular understanding of noise surrounds A-weighted sound level, abbreviated dBA. It’s the most common descriptor used in…
6: Hide behind lax regulations The school zone speed limit sign says 60. Maybe it’s a typo, maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe they mean kilometers/hr? Hard to believe anyone would drive…
#5: “No Regulation, No Problem” Many parts of the USA lack a Noise Ordinance. Contrary to what some believe, a Plant located in such an area is not free of…
#4 – We’ll add the noise control afterward, if needed Noise control added after the fact has a nasty tendency to make equipment bulky, heavy, expensive, inefficient, and difficult to…
#3: Forgetting about noise control engineering Because most of us can hear decently, it’s easy to overestimate our understanding of acoustics and to underestimate the skill required to control noise….
#2: This Plant wasn’t a problem the last time we built it Perhaps that’s true, but a lot of factors can get overlooked if you’re not thinking correctly about noise….
#1: How could OUR noise be annoying? We tend to perceive “our” noise through a lens of positive connotations. It’s the sound of building things, providing jobs, delivering entertainment, powering…