If your room has a classroom sound reinforcement system, you already know the basics of how it works. The team at American Sound & Electronics teaches you how to use the system. However, it may need some fine-tuning after a while.
Speakers and microphones are excellent additions to your room as part of a sound reinforcement system, but there are other considerations to think about as well. Today’s blog from American Sound & Electronics offers tips on how to optimize your investment and give you and your students the best possible learning and hearing environment.
Related Post: Choosing the Right Classroom Sound Reinforcement System
Having a Great System
The speakers are installed and your wireless microphone is working. It seems like the students are hearing better. They are engaging more throughout the day and test scores are improving. Not to mention your voice isn’t strained at the end of the day. All of these are excellent benefits to a good system. However, there are small things you can do to complement the system, ensuring an even greater quality of hearing.
Reducing Ambient Noise
While the sound inside the classroom has improved, there may be external factors that can impact your students. This can include the sounds from traffic in the hallway, such as loud voices, footsteps, slamming lockers, and doors. These can all be distractions from focused listening. The same can be said for outdoor traffic like cars, horns, sirens, and pedestrian movement. There are ways to decrease these noises, allowing your classroom sound reinforcement system to work to optimum capacity.
Sealing doors. Sealing large spaces between floor and door can dramatically reduce incoming noise. By installing a bottom door seal or bottom door stopper, it can reduce outside noise and stop drafts as well. If there are windows in the door, seal them with caulk to also reduce hallway noises.
Soundproof fabrics. You have a few options to block external sound. Purchasing soundproof or noise-reducing sheets or curtains over windows can absorb and filter noises from outside coming into the classroom. These items can also be placed over doors.
These items can be found at many home improvement stores or online.
Reducing Lost Sound in High Ceilings
Sound travels. We know this. But in large rooms, it has to travel further. When this happens, it becomes lost in the “dead spaces” of a room or ceiling. The further it has to go before it comes into contact with a hard space, the more reverberation the sound has. The more reverberation, the more distorted the sound becomes. This results in poor hearing. When 75 percent of a student’s day is from listening, it’s vital that the distance sound travels is as short and direct as possible. American Sound & Electronics will show you how to optimize the classroom sound reinforcement system by placing the speakers properly
Many classrooms have high ceilings, particularly in larger rooms or older buildings. This is great for offering feelings of space, but it can make speaking and hearing difficult, even with a good microphone and speaker system.
Acoustic ceiling panels. Installing acoustic panels is a great way to give sound a hard space to bounce off of and travel back down to the ear. These panels are made from various materials like polyester fibers, fabrics, and foam that are hard enough to bounce sound and soft enough to absorb ambient noises. Many companies now make these out of recycled materials, reducing your carbon footprint.
Room dividers. Room dividers are another way to stop sound from travelling into parts of a room where it doesn’t need to go. Like the acoustic panels, room dividers can be purchased in a variety of sizes, styles and materials. Strategically placing these in the back of the room can increase the quality of hearing your students need. You can even place student’s artwork inside the panels to add color and showcase work.
Area rugs. If you can’t afford to carpet the whole room, placing area rugs around your desk, in large play areas or in open spaces will stop noise from bouncing off the hard floor.
Classroom Sound Reinforcement by American Sound
These are great additions to your new sound reinforcement that don’t cost much and create a huge value to you and your students. Contact American Sound & Electronics or call (859) 261-9024 to learn more about the classroom sound reinforcement systems we install.
