Back in college, did you ever find yourself trying to study with a party going on a few doors down? If you did, then you know how hard it is to work in a noisy, distracting environment. Now bring that problem to an office setting. Office noise, it has been found, affects the productivity of employees. In a study by the Data Entry Management Association, poor office acoustics increased the errors made in data entries by as much as 27%. Recently, the average noise level in the office has been on a steady increase. Cost-cutting and efficiency measures have made offices smaller, and cubicles closer together. More workers are finding themselves in closer proximity with their co-workers, and having to deal with the noise they generate as they go about their business: phone calls, keyboard tapping, and conversations. There are more telephones and faxes, which increase the noise levels even more. Because of these developments, there has been an increasing demand for sound masking. This practice didn't begin only recently. At the height of the Roman Empire, its wealthy citizens had fountains made indoors so that it would keep out the sound of the busy street outside. Have you ever tried to speak with a person in another room, while you were in the bathroom with the water faucet on? In essence, that is precisely the way that sound masking works. Sound - like people having a conversation, for example - carries on certain frequencies. By introducing a new, low-frequency, complementary sound, the conversation becomes harder to detect, and therefore is less distracting. Specialists use this principle to apply masking to your office. With a series of speakers usually mounted in the ceiling tiles themselves, a barely-noticeable sound is generated throughout the workplace. This sound is soft and non-distracting, and it will mask much of the noise in a busy work environment. Not all offices are alike. Sound masking technicians will need to asses how to mask your office noise based on the size and shape of the room, which has an effect on acoustics, and on the usual activity that goes on in the work area, as certain offices are naturally more noisy than others. See if you can get someone to have a look at your office. There are many sound masking companies out there that can give you an estimate. They'll assist in designing a custom solution for your office and installing a system that will give you the best acoustics for a quieter workplace. Active masking systems can help workers perform better, focus harder, and get the job done.