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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

I'm also wonder what it is about argon gas that helps prevent sound transmission.

This [1] explains Sound Transmission Class (STC) ratings.

> An STC label delineates how partitions and walls effectively block sound and reduce noise. Ratings are determined by broadcasting a specific auditory tone near the material, and measuring dB on both sides. The higher the STC value, the better its insulation.

From the table STC=25 means "Normal speech easily understood" and STC=50 means "Shouting not heard"

This [2] table has one datapoint comparison of "airspace" vs argon filled windows. Both have an STC of 35. So maybe it doesn't help.

[1] https://www.dillmeierglass.com/news/stc-ratings-of-glass

[2] https://www.general-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Aco...

I wonder if somebody vaguely remembered the effects of helium fill, which actually does reduce sound transmission, and vaguely remembered that argon-filled windows are a commercial product, and conflated the two because they're both noble gases.

Nothing about the story of this project suggests they are top-tier sound engineers, and when you don't really know what you're doing (said very respectfully) the proposition "we need to fill windows and this is what other people normally do when they fill windows" is a very positive data point.

They didn't even start with museum-grade glass for optimal filming, which to a absolute layman like me seems like they just hadn't bumped most of these problems before.

When they started doing these tournaments over a decade ago, esports LAN tournaments was barely an industry, and crowds were small. Also, MOBAs are unlike many other esport genres [1], in that the two teams have partial information about the state of the game, and illegally getting information a few seconds early can change the entire outcome of the game [2].

Meaning there was no one in the world who really knew how to build such booths. Moreover, they discovered required features of the booths over the years. In such a scenario, the early mistakes are very understandable.

[1] Think Street Fighter, or FIFA

[2] I don't think games like Starcraft has such low time tolerances on information flow. Even cheers in Dota can be enough of a clue.

Starcraft has the same problem and also uses "soundproof" booths, fwiw. I believe the practice started under SC:BW

Oh for sure, please don't read my comment in a demeaning tone - very much the opposite.

Argon gas does not conduct heat as well as air, so it's an excellent insulator. <--- why it's used for double glazing in housing, to insulate heat transfer.

Which is interesting because the density of argon is greater than air, it does not block or insulate against sound other than the general deadening effect you'd get from multiple layers (energy loss in kinetic transfer from gas to glass to gas to glass to gas again).

Vacuum, He or H would've been better imo

I'd speculate that with it's "full outer shell" of electrons the nucleus is more shielded and the repulsion of other Ar atoms is higher and so perhaps density is a little lower than might be expected?

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