
Inside the quietest place on Earth - uptown
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170526-inside-the-quietest-place-on-earth
======
probe
I had the chance to tour this room and it is a pretty cool experience. It's
not like it's completely silent - when you speak or make noise you can hear
it, but there are no echoes and everything is just kind of muffled. You hear
the sound and then it quickly disappears, very similar to how you hear when
your ears are pressurized right after take of. It's like taking the flavor out
of voices, or making a picture/video dull.

The coolest part was when they turned the lights off and locked the door. The
only thing you hear then is the awkward movements of other people as they make
noise just to make sure they still... exist.

~~~
rl3
> _The coolest part was when they turned the lights off and locked the door._

I'm slightly concerned that the door has a lock in the first place.

Was it locked from the inside or outside? I can see the latter being
consistent with Microsoft's style. :)

~~~
Cpoll
Probably both. Locks are to keep honest employees from having sex in your
anechoic chamber.

------
Dunedan
> They are looking for tiny vibrations that are produced by capacitors on
> electronic circuit boards as current passes through them. These can make the
> components on the board produce annoying hums that can be off-putting for
> consumers.

I'm so glad to hear Microsoft is taking that serious. Do you still remember
the humming capacitors of the very first MacBook? Awful. Or the ones we still
get nowadays in USB power supplies and other cheap gadgets?

~~~
chli
I think the coils are making the noise not the capacitors:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_noise)

~~~
dom0
Almost everything starts to make noises at higher currents (e.g. CPU voltage
regulator). You have of course coils making noise, you have ceramic capacitors
making noise to due piezoelectricity, even good old fashioned electrolyte caps
can make noises and transistors buzz due to thermal expansion of the die under
switching stress. Not in computers, but even batteries, cables and bus bars
make noises under pulse current loads, as do film capacitors (used in high
power snubbers).

In the case of capacitors it also goes the other way; tapping a capacitor
induces voltage spikes which can disturb analogue signals.

~~~
seanp2k2
( the last part is an actual reason to isolate amplifiers from speaker
systems. Not usually worth it aside from the very high-end. Not as much effect
as isolating a turntable for sure, but theoretically it should make a
difference. )

------
corysama
"A small number of people feel dizzy."

Reports of this from other similar chambers convinced me of the importance of
audio in VR. I've noticed first-hand how it's possible to hear how close to a
wall you are when walking down a large hallway. Apparently, we all hear walls,
floors and ceilings all the time and it plays into our balance. Other chambers
have reported people losing balance and falling over as a side effect of being
in a room with no echoes.

~~~
lb1lf
Aye. While in university, I spent lots of time in the antenna lab (which
doubled as an anechoic chamber.).

Even hours and hours of exposure couldn't help me get my bearings; I became
dizzy within seconds and, on some occasions, even felt like I was about to
barf.

Luckily I didn't fall over - 'our' chamber didn't have a wire floor like the
Microsoft one - just a narrow walkway into the center of the room where there
was a pod for installing whatever gear you were about to test.

Falling onto those tiles would probably cost someone a fortune. (I've got no
idea what anechoic tiles cost, but I know they are rather brittle. Don't ask
me how I know.)

------
chiph
Background hum: For Europeans who come to the US - do you notice a difference
in the hum produced by electrical equipment? Because you may be used to fans,
transformers, etc. running at 50Hz vs. 60 Hz in the US, and that's in the
audible range.

~~~
snowwindwaves
I was a co-op student at nortel networks in the 90's. They had an anechoic
chamber used for testing telephones. I remember the lightbulb hanging from the
cieling sounded like a swarm of bees.

------
andrewflnr
I love the part about the person who sat in there for an hour to raise money
for charity. Not running X miles or anything like that, sitting in a room for
an hour. That says a lot.

------
toomanybeersies
I have pretty serious tinnitus, to the point where I actually need ambient
noise of some sort to sleep (not quite to the level of leaving the TV on, but
a fan or some traffic).

I don't think I could spend long in that chamber at all.

~~~
stevewillows
Every day or so I get a quick pitch. To fix it, I put the pads of my thumbs on
my ears (with my fingers pointing backwards) and then rotate upwards while
lightly pressing. I couldn't imagine living with that full time, or even on a
regular basis.

Have you found anything to temporarily relieve this (diet, movements, etc)?

~~~
kqr
I had some tinnitus (unknown origin) for a week or so many years back. It
really taught me the importance of protecting my hearing. I feel really lucky
I got to experience it temporarily at just that point in my life where I was
young enough that it wasn't too late, yet mature enough to realize how serious
it could have been.

~~~
stevewillows
yeah, you're lucky it went away.

I used to do most of my work within the music industry, which meant going to a
lot of shows. Early on I started wearing earplugs. The odd time someone would
give me slack for it, but something as fragile and important as your hearing
is worth pulling out all of the stops to protect.

I was at this hardcore show a few years ago that was so loud that my earplugs
weren't even enough. When I adjusted them, I heard the raw volume of the show
--- I'm surprised my head didn't explode.

------
mehrshad
I was here just three weeks ago. It's not an ideal deprivation experience as
much as it is an optimal acoustic testing lab, especially considering the
vibrations you experience from trying to stay still on the lattice floor (see
picture 3:
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BT47Lluje03/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BT47Lluje03/)).

Fittingly, the serial number field on the door leading to the room was blank.
Not needed for the only one of its kind, I suppose.

------
vortico
I've always wanted to try one of these out since hearing about them a few
years ago. Does anyone know of anechoic chambers that people can tour,
specifically in the Bay Area?

~~~
alanfalcon
A high end foley room would probably get you 98% of the way there.

~~~
eropple
Recording spaces in general are a good (though very incomplete) starting
point. My office, where I do a decent amount of AV recording, has about 60%
coverage of acoustic foam and standing silently in the dead corner (2" wedge
foam from floor to ceiling around a bass trap) makes people visibly
uncomfortable.

------
eridius
I'd be really curious to go into that room. I have tinnitus, and I'm wondering
what I'd actually hear if that was the only sound around.

------
mikerg87
Cool. But have been around a while. I had the good luck to go inside the one
at Murray Hill that was built in 1940.

[https://www.bell-labs.com/anechoic-chamber/](https://www.bell-
labs.com/anechoic-chamber/)

------
Stenzel
In you are after this experience and cannot find an anechoic chamber nearby,
an EMC test lab might also work - they usually have a room where walls are
covered with radiation absorbent material, which incidentally also absorbs
sound very well.

------
cygned
I really would like to do Zazen in that room.

