Nimbus Group presented at Orgatec 2014 a concept that integrates a LED lighting system with a sound-masking system, involving its two areas of expertise: Nimbus and Rossoacoustic.
The design concept shows a LED work place luminaire standing directly at a personal workplace. The sound-masking effect is achieved by the luminaire emitting individually controllable acoustic signals through two separate loudspeakers. The unwanted cacophony of voices is overlaid or, as the professionals say, masked. On the one hand, this is achieved through a parametric ultrasonic loudspeaker on the underside of the luminaire. This emits its masking signal in a specific direction and forms a hearing zone around the person working at the desk. On the other hand, there is also an indirect signal from a conventional loudspeaker directed towards the ceiling, which emits a quiet, hardly perceptible background noise.
In the USA it is already quite common to emit a wide-area noise throughout an entire open space office because it is better to work with a quiet, indirect background noise together with efficient and personally controllable sound emission.
