occurred to me anyone had ever given the slightest thought to, such as “The Effects of Wear Estimates and Prediction Practices on the Production of Planetary Gear Whine” and “The Influence of Body Cavity Acoustic Modes on Booming Noise During Acceleration.” Some of the essays sounded as if they could have been lifted from a poem by John Ashbery, such as one from NASA entitled “Vibration Response Models of a Stiffened Aluminum Plate Excited by a Shaker.” Others smacked oddly of lines cribbed from a 1950s etiquette book: “Ceiling Performance Is Best When No Touching Is Allowed.” Then there were the more cocktail-party-minded presentations, like one on mitigating noise from a private racetrack. (Its author told me he had recently done a study for a major theme-park operator on roller-coaster noise in response to complaints from surrounding communities. The main thing this study discovered was that by far the most annoying noise at the theme park came not from roller coasters but from musical concerts.) The event also boasted many, many papers on airplane, airport, vehicle, and road noise, along with a special session by a somewhat mysterious body known as the Noise Control Foundation. I learned a great deal. What I was most interested in, however, was not the papers but the vendors.
The conference brought together just about every major player in the soundproofing industry. I wanted to learn what was happening at the cutting edge of the business and came armed with a simple question: What could we do—more precisely, what could
I
do—to shut out the world and create a reasonable approximation of complete quiet?
Scores of vendors packed the mega-ballroom exposition hall at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn. Many of them were sloshing back drinks and seemed to be enjoying the kinds of uproarious conversations that would have been equally appropriate at Noise-Pro 2008. There were snake-oil-style soundproofers in loud suits manning booths arrayed with tiles and slabs of peculiar layered materials, canisters of sprays and foams, odd metal bits, rubber mats, door panels, as well as over-magnified, bleached-out photos on poster board of function venues, housing developments, cement blocks, trees, and pretty, pigtailed girls with their fingers to their lips above the word “QUIET.” Men and women who looked as though their products had been concocted for late-night-TV sales spots jostled up next to earnest northern Europeans dressed like influential architects and standing before black boxes projecting gray needles, faceless heads wearing headphones, and laptops in suitcases with screens displaying sharp, dancing green lines and complex spectral grids. Though there were exceptions, by and large Americans seemed to be making the stuff that actually got glued to, hammered on, or squirted into walls, floors, and cracks to cut sound down, while the Europeans were the sound-measurement jocks—devising ultrasensitive decibel counters, vibration analyzers, and software systems to figure out exactly what kind of noise problem you were dealing with.
I paused a second before a neat display of rough, pasty tiles at the booth of the International Cellulose Corporation. A bald, tan guy bent forward to read my name tag.
“How are you doing, George?” he asked.
“I’m doing well,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “If I was any better, there’d be two of me. And you don’t want that. Even I can only stand one of me.”
“So, listen,” I said. “I’ve got noise problems all over my home. What can you do for me?”
“George,” he said regretfully, “we only sell through licensed applicators, architects, and acoustical engineers. But … are you familiar with our new SonaKrete?” I shook my head. “It’s our new premium acoustical finisher and probably the product we’re most excited about right now. Unbelievably effective. George, they’re using this everywhere. Courtrooms. Restaurants.
The conference brought together just about every major player in the soundproofing industry. I wanted to learn what was happening at the cutting edge of the business and came armed with a simple question: What could we do—more precisely, what could
I
do—to shut out the world and create a reasonable approximation of complete quiet?
Scores of vendors packed the mega-ballroom exposition hall at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn. Many of them were sloshing back drinks and seemed to be enjoying the kinds of uproarious conversations that would have been equally appropriate at Noise-Pro 2008. There were snake-oil-style soundproofers in loud suits manning booths arrayed with tiles and slabs of peculiar layered materials, canisters of sprays and foams, odd metal bits, rubber mats, door panels, as well as over-magnified, bleached-out photos on poster board of function venues, housing developments, cement blocks, trees, and pretty, pigtailed girls with their fingers to their lips above the word “QUIET.” Men and women who looked as though their products had been concocted for late-night-TV sales spots jostled up next to earnest northern Europeans dressed like influential architects and standing before black boxes projecting gray needles, faceless heads wearing headphones, and laptops in suitcases with screens displaying sharp, dancing green lines and complex spectral grids. Though there were exceptions, by and large Americans seemed to be making the stuff that actually got glued to, hammered on, or squirted into walls, floors, and cracks to cut sound down, while the Europeans were the sound-measurement jocks—devising ultrasensitive decibel counters, vibration analyzers, and software systems to figure out exactly what kind of noise problem you were dealing with.
I paused a second before a neat display of rough, pasty tiles at the booth of the International Cellulose Corporation. A bald, tan guy bent forward to read my name tag.
“How are you doing, George?” he asked.
“I’m doing well,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “If I was any better, there’d be two of me. And you don’t want that. Even I can only stand one of me.”
“So, listen,” I said. “I’ve got noise problems all over my home. What can you do for me?”
“George,” he said regretfully, “we only sell through licensed applicators, architects, and acoustical engineers. But … are you familiar with our new SonaKrete?” I shook my head. “It’s our new premium acoustical finisher and probably the product we’re most excited about right now. Unbelievably effective. George, they’re using this everywhere. Courtrooms. Restaurants.
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