A Shangri-La guest on Level 38 in Phnom Penh shouldn’t hear their neighbour. Soundzipper flew to Cambodia to confirm they can’t.

Client Deco-Base Enterprise Pte Ltd	Location Shangri-La Hotel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Service Acoustic Testing	Completed 2022
Scope Guest Room Doors & Connecting Room Partitions, Level 38

NIC 50

Measured result for the back-to-back connecting door between Unit A and Unit B, exceeding the expected in-field performance against an STC 35 specification

4 / 4

All four partitions tested — corridor entry doors and connecting room wall — passed their NIC requirements in full

Cambodia

Soundzipper’s first project in Cambodia — acoustic testing conducted on-site in Phnom Penh by a Singapore-based team

The Situation

Deco-Base Enterprise, a Singapore-based fit-out contractor, engaged Soundzipper to conduct post-construction acoustic testing at the Shangri-La Hotel in Phnom Penh — specifically on Level 38, where guest room partitions and connecting doors had been installed as part of a fit-out project. The Shangri-La brand maintains its own standards for guest room acoustic performance, and the testing was required to confirm that the as-built partitions met those standards before the rooms were signed off. Soundzipper’s testing team travelled from Singapore to Phnom Penh to conduct the testing on site, making this Soundzipper’s first acoustic testing engagement in Cambodia.

What We Found

Four partitions were tested across two guest room clusters on Level 38. The first was the main entry door from the corridor into Unit A (P1), an STC 40-rated door. The second was the full partition between Unit A and Unit B through the connecting door system, using two STC 35-rated doors installed back-to-back (P2), with a further test of the same partition with only one door in use (P2.1). The third was the main entry door from the corridor into Unit C (P3), also STC 40-rated. Each partition was tested in its as-built, fully installed condition using a calibrated NTi Audio XL2 sound level meter and dodecahedral speaker, in accordance with ASTM E336 and E413. A stethoscope was also used to check door perimeter and bottom seals for any audible leakage; none was found.

What We Confirmed

All four tested partitions passed. The corridor-to-Unit A door (STC 40 rated) achieved NIC 38 on-site, within the expected 5 to 8 dB in-field reduction from laboratory rating and confirmed compliant. The back-to-back connecting door between Unit A and Unit B achieved NIC 50, exceeding the typical expectation for a pair of STC 35 doors by a meaningful margin. When the same connecting door was tested with only one panel in use (P2.1), the result was NIC 32, useful data for the hotel’s operational team, showing exactly how much acoustic separation is lost when a connecting door is used in single rather than double configuration. The corridor-to-Unit C door (STC 40 rated) achieved NIC 37, again within the expected in-field performance range and confirmed compliant. Soundzipper’s report confirmed full compliance across all tested partitions, with no remediation required.