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Comment by skowmunk | Hacker News Reader

The work so far has been mainly testing, about to get programmers and its going to be quite busy. One of the issues is this office is in India in part of a city with high noise pollution, high enough that it comes into the office.

The other issue is that the staff expansion plans would soon make the current office a tad small, in which case I would have to incur expenses for moving to a bigger office. So, it is also about stretching out the usability of the current office with a one time expense.

Abt the Bose, the new ones (QC 15) are quite good in noise canceling (the construction does look quite cheap). Tried the QC 3, 2 years ago, didn't find them helpful enough, so I returned them. But the new ones are so good that I am keeping them, and this is from a guy who hardly ever buys $300 gadgets. You might want to check out the 15s

I use them more for noise cancellation than for music, hmm.. for a simulated private office environment :)

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this office is in India in part of a city with high noise pollution, high enough that it comes into the office.

When I lived in a small apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area, I bought a bunch (~9) of bargain-bin flat king-sized sheets (the flat sheets only, not the fitted ones) and copper piping cut at the store to fit the lengths I needed and closet supports. Some sheets come with a fold at one end that will work to slide a pipe through. Others, you can have it customized for very little money at a tailor shop. Alternately, you can buy clips to hang the sheets as curtains without any modification. I found that having them tailored, so I could wash them frequently, worked best for me. For one especially long wall, I bought a hook for a middle support. Some of these curtains were used to separate rooms (the living room from the dining room, the dining room from the kitchen) but others were hung flat against a wall solely for decoration and sound-proofing (between the master bedroom and kid's bedroom). I think I spent roughly $100.00 for the whole thing, plus a few bucks more later when I took them to a tailor to modify them because I was sick of dealing with the clips.

If you do this to divide spaces, you do need to consider that air flow may be an issue. But if hung flat against an exterior wall just to block out noise (and assuming the wall itself has no air vents), this shouldn't be an issue.

awesome idea, may be I can hose in the air with an air compressor and that should help overcome air flow issues too.

nah, I will just reverse the vacuum cleaner, air compressor's too expensive and that's better utilization rate for the vacuum cleaner too.

hung flat against an exterior walll just to block out noise

Plain brilliance at work!

Just a thought: when I say "flat" against a wall, I don't literally mean the curtains should lay flat. Leave an inch or so from the wall if you can and let them have folds, like normal curtains. It can look very elegant. I just bought solid color sheets (no patterns).

Good luck.

right, moreover the folds can give additional sound damping too. and I wouldn't have to spend that princely amount on those noise canceling headphones.

you are an angel.

Do you think that 1 inch space in between the curtains and the wall can provide some extra thermal insulation too? and save me a bit more money on the aircon expenses?

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