White Noise Machines for Home or Office
 Sonet White Noise System |
 Noise Shield White Noise Machine |
 Privacy Guard White Noise Machine |
What Is White Noise?
In its broadest sense, white noise is like white color. Just as white color is made up of every color in the spectrum, so white noise is made up of thousands of frequencies, all in equal amounts. This is why white noise is considered “unstructured sound.” Structured sound – such as voices or music – communicates information using specific, ordered frequencies. It’s the difference between talk radio (structured sound) and the sound your computer fan makes (unstructured). Because unstructured sound communicates nothing, our minds quickly tune it out.
It is this trait that makes white noise particularly valuable for masking intrusive or distracting human speech. The technology behind speech privacy systems came out of the realization by scientists and engineers that acoustic privacy is actually a simple matter of making speech unintelligible. That is, if each of us can’t understand what the other is saying, we have effectively established acoustic privacy – even though we may still be able to see and, to some extent, hear each other. Because it’s unstructured sound, it makes it much more difficult for our minds to discern individual words and other structured sounds that the white noise is masking or covering up. To put it another way, white noise generators “fill in” the sound spectrum.
The technology involved in white noise machines, white noise generators, and sound masking systems has improved significantly, and most now produce a sound that specifically targets the that is both more comfortable to hear as well as more effective at masking particular sounds, such as human speech. Because of this, it’s more accurate to refer to most white noise generators as “sound masking systems.” Good sound masking is actually designed to sound like typical office air conditioning noise, so that you won’t notice it. In other words, it’s a gentle “whooshing” sound.
An important note: sound masking is not noise cancellation. While cancellation technology is available in limited applications (such as masking airplane engine noise), the complex frequency range and physics of human speech in office environments presents a problem with no currently-available technological solution.
How White Noise Systems Work
If you want to increase the productivity of your workers by decreasing the conversational distractions in the area, sound masking is the tool that will give you the most bang for the buck. Since you’re masking sound, you put the masking system in the area where the noise is heard, rather than the source.
Example 1: Open office workers struggle to maintain focus. That’s why you see more and more cubicle workers bringing headphones to work – so they can cover up the conversations around them.
In this example, the VoiceArrest system would be installed in the open office area.
Example 2: In addition to the problem of conversational distractions in Example 1, Bob has a voice that carries. Unfortunately, Bob also is the head of HR, and like Mary and Jim and the rest of his department, he frequently discusses confidential topics in his office. However, because of the paper-thin walls, speech travels freely (and clearly) between offices and out into the open office area, as well. In this scenario, you’d add masking to the enclosed offices, as well as the open areas. Additionally, you’d also use two different zones to keep the sound in the enclosed offices from building up.
This example provides the most effective and the most “invisible” way to increase the speech privacy levels of this hypothetical office space, ensuring uniform sound masking for all your employees.