Test the acoustics at your office yourself with a self-test

Test the acoustics at your office yourself

‍Easy (and free) self-test

To find out how the acoustics are doing at your office, there is a simple (self) test. This self-test works without equipment and gives you a good first impression of the acoustics in the room in question.

The acoustics are in bad shape in many offices. However, you often don't know it right away. Are there relatively many complaints of fatigue, stress, and headaches among your employees? Or are you experiencing a lot of noise and reverb? Poor acoustics can be the cause of this. To gain more insight into the acoustic situation in your office, you can start with an accessible self-test.

No equipment required
As mentioned, you don't need any equipment for the self-test. Just your ears and hands. And you don't need to be an acoustic expert to perform the test either! Plus, it's completely free! After all, you can already get a very good idea of the degree of reverberation and/or echo in the room by simply sending a short isolated sound signal into the room and then listening to the result.

Clap your hands!
When you make a single big slap with your hands in a quiet room, you immediately make a short and loud sound, a so-called “impulse”. For example, if you do this by clapping with flat hands, most of that sound is already quite part of the spectrum of speech, even slightly wider. Then, if you listen carefully, you can clearly hear what is happening in the room.

Do you hear reflections from the clapping sound?
For example, do you only hear the clap of the hand? So apparently there is no reflection/reverberation/echo. That would be the situation in, for example, an acoustic lab room. Outside, the sound quickly hits a few reflective objects, but inside there are walls and often many more surfaces that reflect sound. You can easily estimate the degree of 'dryness' of the room (little reverberation). If you listen very carefully, you will still hear the reflections of the clap sound after a short time after the clap. The extent to which you hear this and, in particular, its duration say a lot about the acoustic condition of the room.

Flutter
A more or less repetitive pattern indicates flutter: a long, continuous sound of a lot of reverb in a large space. The sound then bounces back and forth for a long time. In a small space, reflections will occur more quickly and eventually die out because the distances are small. And the reverberation time will therefore also be shorter. In a large space such as a gym, auditorium or theater, for example, the sound will take longer to reflect from wall to wall. This makes the reverb times longer.

The solution: absorb the sound!
The solution to a reverberation problem lies in interrupting the sound that is (constantly) reflected. This is basically the same for echo and reverb. For this purpose, acoustic panels uses that absorb the sound and prevent it from being reflected back into the room. The direct sound itself is also partially absorbed, so the overall volume will certainly decrease. However, you do have relatively more direct sound compared to the reverb and/or sound from other sound sources (for example, all conversations at the tables in a restaurant).

A professional acoustic measurement
Does the self-test show that acoustics can be improved and do you want to address this? Before you immediately start solving the problem, it may be wise to have a professional acoustic measurement to do. This measurement gives you a good insight into the situation and you can also determine what it takes to make the acoustics comfortable again.

Want to know more?
Would you like to know more about optimal acoustics and audibility in the office? We are happy to help you with the acoustics at your (home) workplace. Let us know.

Also read about the new office environment after corona and the multi-space approach? We'd love to have a coffee with you (online or offline). Take contact with us.

Check out our sustainable acoustic solutions for sustainable office furnishings or read here more about the changing office environment after corona.

‍