Challenge

Ensuring Good Acoustics for Employees, Customers, and Partners

Located just four and a half blocks from the site of the original Shure Loop office, Shure Chicago City Center is designed to welcome up to 150 Shure employees across sales, marketing, customer service and market development. It’s also home to their exciting new Customer Experience Center. Designed to showcase a wide variety of Shure technology in a real-world environment to customers and integrators, the Customer Experience Center features a full range of Shure products in a functional evaluation environment.

The new office occupies an entire floor of The National Building in Chicago’s Loop district. Built in 1906, The National had extremely high ceilings, which clearly would affect the acoustics. The Customer Experience Center occupies one corner of the space, the rest of the space is occupied by the sales, marketing, and tech support teams in a collection of low-partition cubicles, private offices, conference rooms, and open-office collaborative spaces.

It was imperative that cross talk from the office space did not interfere with demos occurring in the Customer Experience Center. Additionally, it was important that employees could focus on individual tasks without overhearing other conversations throughout the space, and that they could also have private conversations in conference rooms and private offices without concern that they’d be overheard.

Shure’s acoustical consultant, Arup, suggested Shure install sound masking from Cambridge Sound Management throughout the space to help improve the space’s acoustics. Sound masking is the process of adding a low level, unobtrusive background sounds to an environment to help cover up speech noise and improve the overall office ambiance. The sound is similar to the sound of airflow, but specifically engineered to cover up human speech, making affected environments more comfortable, private and free of excess noise distractions.

“ As an audio company, we knew how important it would be to have good acoustics in our new office space. Sound masking from Cambridge Sound Management ensures a comfortable working environment for both our employees and visiting customers. It really works.“

– Jim Schanz, Vice President of Global Sales, Integrated Systems Shure Incorporated

Solution

The integrator on the project, AVI-SPL, installed QtPro sound masking from Cambridge Sound Management, the world’s leading provider of sound masking solutions, throughout the open office. Small, barely visible Qt® Emitters (loudspeakers) were connected to a Qt 600 control module. The system allowed for different masking volume levels across different zones, allowing Shure to address noise distractions more aggressively in the open office areas. Automatic ramping was also programmed into the system, allowing the masking noise to be slightly louder at times when the office is at its busiest.

Result

An Acoustical Environment That’s Up to Shure’s Lofty Standard

After eighteen months of planning, renovations and relocating staff, the Shure City Center Chicago has welcomed customers, integrators and associates. “Sound Masking is a big part of what makes the space acoustically comfortable and functional,” says Jim Schanz, Vice President of Global Sales, Integrated Systems for Shure. “As an audio company, we knew how important it would be to have good acoustics in our new office space. Sound masking from Cambridge Sound Management ensures a comfortable working environment for both our employees and visiting customers. It really works.”

About Shure Incorporated

Founded in 1925, Shure Incorporated (www.shure.com) is widely acknowledged as the world’s leading manufacturer of microphones and audio electronics. Over the years, the company has designed and produced many high-quality professional and consumer audio products that have become legendary for performance, reliability, and value. Shure’s diverse product line includes world-class wired microphones, wireless microphone systems, in-ear personal monitoring systems, conferencing and discussion systems, networked audio systems, and award-winning earphones and headphones. Today, Shure products are the first choice whenever audio performance is a top priority.

Shure Incorporated is headquartered in Niles, Illinois, in the United States with more than 30 additional manufacturing facilities and regional sales offices throughout the Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

About Biamp
Biamp® is a leading provider of innovative, networked media systems that power the world’s most sophisticated audiovisual installations. The company is recognized worldwide for delivering high-quality products and backing each one with a commitment to exceptional customer service.

Recipient of the Frost & Sullivan 2018 Global Installed Audio Conferencing Enabling Technology Leadership Award, Biamp is dedicated to creating products that drive the evolution of communication through sight and sound. The award-winning Biamp product suite includes: Tesira® media system for digital audio and video networking, Devio® collaboration tool for modern workplaces, Audia® digital audio platform, Nexia® digital signal processors, Vocia® networked public address and voice evacuation system, Cambridge® sound masking solutions, and loudspeakers for installed sound applications from Community Loudspeakers® and Apart Audio®. Each has its own specific feature set that can be customized and integrated in a wide range of applications, including corporate boardrooms, conference centers, huddle rooms, open floor environments, performing arts venues, courtrooms, hospitals, transportation hubs, campuses, retail, hospitality, military and government, and multi-building facilities.

Founded in 1976, Biamp is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, USA, with additional offices around the globe. For more information on Biamp, please visit www.biamp.com.