Highlights – August 2015

An increasing number of modern open-plan offices use sound-masking systems that raise the background sound of a room so that speech is rendered unintelligible beyond a certain distance and distractions are less annoying.

Sound-masking systems are custom-designed for each office space by consultants, and are typically installed as speaker arrays discreetly tucked away in the ceiling. For the past 40 years, the standard masking signal employed is random, steady-state electronic noise — also known as "white noise."

However, according .....