Please Help Me Be An Awesome Office Mate And Minimize Noise Coming From My Office! (Music, Speech)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I rented a small office to use as a workspace. For reference, it is only about 10’ * 8’ * 9’ with a window at the S end and a little 4’ * 2’ nook in the SW corner

Adjacent to the N wall is a hall and more offices, Adjacent to the E wall is another office. Adjacent to the W wall is an office being used for storage. Adjacent to the S is a busy street.

I stand or sit in the middle, facing a flatscreen on the E wall. I use the flatscreen as my monitor and control my PC using Speech Recognition and a Wii controller(!) (Seriously, holy shit you have to try this! But that’s for another thread ;))

Here’s how it looks, for reference:



Other Offices
----------
   Hall
  -\d\---
 |       |
 |   M   T Other
|    e   V Office
|        |
 ---win--|

The two potential sources of noise are:

[ul]
[li]Me, I dictate to my computer all day, facing the TV on the E wall. I’m not too loud, think pleasant telephone voice.[/li][li]My music, from computer speakers against the E wall that face me (I would prefer not having to be limited to my headset if possible). Again not too loud and I mostly play ambient / meditatio type music, ie Brian Eno, Marconi Union etc, and some jazz. I do have a subwoofer and I would still like to be able to use it even if it needs to be mixed way down because the bass helps me focus.[/li][/ul]

What can I do to ensure I don’t disturb other people in the office?

I can do anything (put up acoustic wallpaper, paint, acoustic paneling, buy a new door, etc) but I’d rather not break the bank if possible.

Would acoustic panels on the N and E walls possibly be enough, or perhaps I should put up acoustic wallpaper on the E wall?

Anybody here have any experience in this sort of thing?

Thanks in advance for helping me not be that guy! (any more than this post has)

2

Wear headphones.

3

Have you confirmed that your noise is actually spilling into adjacent areas?

4

I can dig it, but I’m really trying to not have to. But don’t worry, I know the correct amount of db that people should hear from me is 0…

I just played some music for a moment at a good enough volume - db readings where I stand 4-5’ away avg about 55, and directly next to the speaker they max out at 77. 55 is “quiet office” and 77 is between “ringtone” and “alarm clock” according to the app. I’m not at the office but I wouldn’t expect it to be all that different there.

Also working in my favor, there is nobody above or below to disturb :cool:

I’ll be there tomorrow so my next step is to play some music at a preferred volume and then see if can be heard in the adjacent offices and take some before / after db readings to see how much I need to get rid of.

Thanks for the response!