What is sound masking and why is it used? Sound masking is the addition of a familiar sounding, air conditioning-like background sound to an environment. Masking covers up human speech and helps mitigate the distraction of other sounds, making an environment more comfortable, workers more productive and creating speech privacy. Any sound can mask speech, if it is loud enough. Rain, water flow, background music, and HVAC systems all can be used to mask unwanted sound. Simply adding a sound masking system is the first and most cost-effective step to improving speech privacy in your open office and a highly productive work environment with fewer distractions.

Here is an analogy. Imagine that you are in a darkened room and a child is flicking a flashlight on and off. The light is noticeable and distracting. Now imagine the lights are on. The same flashlight is being flicked on and off - but without notice - it has been "masked." This is how sound masking works.

Where is sound masking used? Sound masking is used anywhere speech privacy or speech confidentiality is desired or required and in any workspace to reduce distractions and improve productivity. The most typical installations are open office plans, private offices, and public spaces.

• Open Office Plans - Open offices are often either too quiet - hearing the occasional pin drop breaks concentration - or too noisy, where the conversations of co-workers are distracting and affect productivity.
• Private Offices - Private offices and other enclosed spaces, while appearing to provide privacy, often do not. Adding a sound masking system greatly improves speech privacy by rendering private conversations completely unintelligible to listeners in the adjacent office, hallway or at the water cooler. And this meets with all requirements of HIPAA and GLBA regulations on speech privacy.
• Public Spaces - Reception areas, pharmacies, waiting rooms, banks and public hallways next to private offices are all great candidates for sound masking systems.

However, as in the light analogy, you can mask the child's flashlight with a floodlight or you can raise the light in the room only to a level where it simply dims the impact of the flashlight. If we mirror the spectrum of the human voice it does not have to be loud to be effective. Sound masking simply allows private conversations to be PRIVATE!