In the ‘What the experts say...’ section of each page acousticians and ergonomists have offered their thoughts and advice on each product. To help you easily identify the acoustic properties of a product, an acoustician has provided clear descriptive icons.

This product is acoustically absorbent and reduces the reflection of sound off hard surfaces.

This product is suitably dense to reduce the transmission of speech sounds from one area to another. Creating barriers to sound disrupts the sound path which means that sound travels less efficiently across the space.

This product creates a pleasant, easily ignored sound that can be used to elevate background noise levels to reduce distraction and improve privacy.

Individuals performing different tasks have different requirements, making it important to design effective working zones. It is critical to place areas of quiet contemplation away from noisy and disruptive zones. Visual and acoustic separation can be used to signal the function and behaviour appropriate to each space.

Rooms with too much reverberation can be uncomfortable and normal conversation may be difficult. Additional absorption is required to reduce reverberation by preventing reflection off hard surfaces. Use this product, along with others, for the control of reverberation at speech frequencies.

Visual distraction can be detrimental to our focus and concentration. In addition, our abilities to read visual cues help us to understand speech better, reducing privacy. Use this product to reduce visual distraction or improve visual privacy.

Distraction distance (rD) is perhaps the most important measure in open plan office acoustic assessments. When someone speaks, a certain number of people around them will be able to hear them clearly and will most likely be distracted by them. This distraction distance should ideally be less than 5 metres. In offices that are lacking good acoustic design, the distraction distance often exceeds 10 metres.

Use this product in conjunction with others to reduce distraction distance and improve speech privacy.