In old movies, you'd see bank presidents, politicians, and mob bosses all disappear behind the same heavy leather door. They'd swing the door shut behind them, and the outside world goes silent. We wanted to see if that "technology" holds up.
For the latest installment of Riverbank's Novelty Testing Series, we tested a 1.4 mm sheet of premium top-grain cow hide leather to determine its sound transmission loss and single-number sound insulation ratings using ASTM E90 and ASTM E413 procedures.
The leather posted a Sound Transmission Class (STC) of 12 and an Outdoor-Indoor Transmission Class (OITC) of 8 — numbers that put the "leather door = privacy" myth to rest. If you want a leather door that actually keeps conversations inside the room, you need some major engineering underneath that exterior. Check out our latest novelty test report to see the full transmission loss data across the frequency range we tested. Download the report at the link below to add to your library and share with your friends and colleagues.
