What is an Acoustic Door?

An acoustic door is a solid, heavily framed door which most often includes seals around its edges and has insulated construction to reduce noise and vibrations from passing through its surface. Depending on the application and the design, an acoustic door may have a special sound transmission rating or STC, which constitutes the sound insulation value of the unit. There are many types and grades of acoustic door available for assorted applications and industries.

In the audio recording industry, the acoustic door serves a special purpose since unwanted noise needs to be avoided in a successful recording session. In a recording studio you may have several rooms or booths that are designed for specific tasks. The studio control room has an acoustic door so the engineer and producer can be isolated from the additional rooms and parts of the studio while allowing these individuals to travel between locations. Sometimes these doors will be transparent containing multi-pane glass panels in the center so that individuals on each side can see each other easily.

Sometimes an acoustic door is solid steel or wood with an insulated core to achieve maximum quiet when transparency is not necessary. A door of this style is quite often used in an examination room at a doctor's office where a conversation between the doctor and patient requires total privacy.

Another logical home for an acoustic door could be a conference room at a corporate office where information concerning product development, human resources or business strategy would be discussed. Counseling centers, police station questioning rooms, and testing facilities or anywhere where privacy and confidentiality are essential, can be included as an application for this type of door.

Production departments or facilities that contain heavy machinery, tooling or motorized activity usually have acoustical doors throughout the location to keep hazardous sound levels out of populated areas. A large manufacturing plant may use an acoustic door to establish privacy and protection for managers required to monitor productivity on the main floor. A newspaper will use acoustic doors and panels to damper the sound of large printing presses while allowing a passageway for pressmen and technicians to maintain and operate the machinery.

Logically, any facility where sound needs to be separated from people, places or things to insure safety, privacy, or productivity and still provide a method of passage between two or more locations, will need a door of this type. A good look around our individual environments should help us notice with more clarity a number of uses for the acoustic door.