Acoustic requirements

Reputable audiology clinics require high levels of speech privacy and speech intelligibility in their consulting rooms. Speech privacy is a must in order to protect patients’ privacy and confidentiality. Clear speech intelligibility is imperative for patients and practitioners to audibly understand without any interfering and annoying echoes.

‘True Hearing’ is a modern audiology clinic that had a suspended ceiling grid system with commercial ceiling tiles, spanning over two adjoining consulting rooms, as well as over to the walkway and the waiting area. The walls were all standard stud walls. The owner of this clinic was disappointed with the acoustics. Recognizing the importance of speech privacy and speech intelligibility, Megasorber was called in to assist in achieving these requirements. Our initial investigation revealed sound was passing through the ceiling plenum as well as through the stud walls.

Soundproofing solutions

To stop the sound passing through the ceiling plenum (cross talk), Megasorber CM28 acoustic tiles replaced the existing glass fibre ceiling tiles. With a Weighted Sound Reduction Index (Rw) of 24, Megasorber CM28 blocks out the sound transfer through the ceiling. Megasorber CM28 also has a Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) of 0.82, so these tiles absorb the sound within the room, thus providing excellent speech intelligibility. For more details on how Megasorber CM28 works, please click here.

To stop the sound from getting through the common walls, Megasorber B barrier was attached to the existing plasterboard walls. Then a new layer of plasterboard was placed on top of the Megasorber B barrier creating a ‘barrier sandwich’ between two layers of plasterboard. For more details on how Megasorber B8 works, please click here.