

A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it - jamessun
http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120515/NEWS04/120519723/a-room-so-quiet-no-one-can-stand-it-for-more-than-45-minutes&pager=full_story

======
Anechoic
BTW, Ron Sauro at NWAA Labs (<http://nwaalabs.com/> or
<http://nwaalabs.ipower.com/pictures1.html>) was hoping to build a quieter
chamber but his funding dried up. He built his acoustical testing facility at
a nuclear plant that was constructed but never commissioned.

The original plan was to build a 50ft by 60ft by 55ft chamber, with about half
of it being underground. Given the exterior noise level of around 20 dBA (the
plant is located in the wilderness), the thick concrete walls of the facility,
and some additional noise and structural isolation he might very well beat
Orfield's record with a much larger chamber (meaning it will be anechoic down
to a lower frequency). If he can get the funding.

If you're ever in the area, Ron is a friendly guy and he'll be happy to give
you a tour (he's on LinkedIn).

~~~
robmiller
Agreed, I feel fortunate to have NWAA so close. Good to see you on HN,
Anechoic.

------
jrabone
I've worked in one of these for a happy summer making measurements of acoustic
diffuser panels. I quite enjoyed it. However, it looks that that room actually
has a regular floor; mine didn't. You lowered your own suspended floor (metal
grill tiles) onto scaffold poles to get into the room, then tore it all up as
you left. Falling off the "floor" was a Really Bad Idea; those foam pyramids
have got a steel spike up the middle for rigidity, and you'd be in deep
trouble if you fell onto them from 6 feet up (especially as no-one was going
to hear you scream).

There was a safety microphone wired to the door switch for this reason (which
also meant it wasn't QUITE such a good idea to say rude things about people in
there :-)

~~~
Anechoic
_However, it looks that that room actually has a regular floor_

Look carefully at the picture, he's not standing on a solid floor, he's
standing on a wire frame over more absorbers. Their website has a better pic:
<http://www.orfieldlabs.com/Researchtour4.html>

IOW, their chamber is (fully) anechoic, not just hemi-anechoic.

~~~
jrabone
Yes, you're quite right; I thought that was a particularly ugly patterned
carpet he was standing on. I think that says more about British carpets than
anything else :)

Looks like their wire floor is a bit more permanent than the design I was
using; my microphone was on a rotating boom that could be swept 360 degrees
from outside, and my sample mounting was a pole down to the real floor, so we
could have the absolute minimum of interference from the mountings.

------
dzuc
Well apparently one can hear one's own circulatory and nervous system:
[http://theresonator.blogspot.com/2007/04/john-cage-visits-
an...](http://theresonator.blogspot.com/2007/04/john-cage-visits-anechoic-
chamber.html)

> Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later,
> he "heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the
> engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system
> in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."

~~~
jsiarto
I can attest to this. We have an anechoic chamber here at Michigan State and
I've also been in the testing chamber at EV (Electro-Voice). Hearing the blood
in your head and ears is quite odd, but the disorientation from not being able
to place yourself in space is even stranger.

~~~
agscala
After reading this article, I immediately started to see if I could find one
nearby and found out about the one at Michigan State. Would it be possible for
me to go there and sit inside for a bit to experience this, even though I'm
not a MSU student?

~~~
artmageddon
Likewise, I'd like to try this... it seems cool as hell!

~~~
jsiarto
Hey all -- I can see if I can arrange something. The chamber is in the
basement of the Communication Arts and Sciences building and I teach in the
College--but I don't know who currently runs it. Let me send some emails and
see what I can do.

~~~
fabricode
If you are able to make this happen, it would be very interesting if you could
get the visitors to write a short note before entering about what they expect,
how well they think they'll handle the disorientation, etc. After they're done
have them write a similar note about their experience and how reality matched
up with their expectations.

For all of us that don't have access to such facilities, this kind of
before/after diary might be very interesting.

------
bandy
I'm sure many people could, starting with the Deaf. I'd certainly enjoy a
break from the incessant yammering of humanity.

~~~
Anechoic
_I'd certainly enjoy a break from the incessant yammering of humanity._

It's not just a break from humanity, it's a break from _everything_ (including
nature, which typically fills the void when humanity is absent).

If you haven't been in a very quiet space, it becomes disorienting very
quickly. The quietest space I've been in has been <12 dBA (my measurement
equipment only went that low so I couldn't get the true Lmin). At that level,
I could hear the blood rushing through my ear. I have a minor case of tinnitus
which is typically inaudible, but in that space it was like an alarm clock
screaming into one ear. The other ear seemed to desperately find something to
"lock" onto, so it was amplifying every little thing it could.

After about 15 minutes I wound up opening a window to let a little wind noise
into the room. That raised noise levels up to about 19 dBA and was much more
comfortable.

~~~
mikecane
>>>I have a minor case of tinnitus which is typically inaudible, but in that
space it was like an alarm clock screaming into one ear.

Ah, I was wondering about that. (Now scrolls up to delete question asked
elsewhere.)

------
mmcnickle
There was a small room like this at my university. It was fitted with a
"panic" button, because if anything happened you in there, no one could hear
you shouting.

------
jawns
I was hoping for more science-y details. Any HN folks care to give a better
explanation of what's going on here?

~~~
dsr_
The room is anechoic and insulated. Anechoic means that the walls are treated
to absorb all the sound waves that hit them, and not reflect them back.
(Typically, anechoic surfaces are soft and cannot support much weight, so
[guess] there is probably a support system to put weight bearing platforms
inside.) Insulated means that sounds from outside the room are not transmitted
in. A lot of concrete can take care of the high frequencies, but low
frequencies often require special suspensions to keep sounds from the earth
out.

The most interesting thing is the measured extent of what they've produced.

------
zaphar
I read that title and immediately thought. Challenge Accepted.

~~~
koglerjs
I want one to meditate in each morning.

------
coreygoodie
Being completely deaf in one ear, I'm sure I could last 90 minutest at least.
A cool article, but a bit sensationalist.

~~~
mistercow
I like that your process for calculating how long you could last appears to
consist of multiplying the amount of time others can last by their ratio of
working ears to yours. Science!

~~~
azelfrath
As I read his comment I was going to write basically what you did, but I
thought "No. No, that is too nerdy." So thank you =D

Relevant: I do wonder though if the disorientation would be less for someone
with complete deafness in one ear. I would think that they are already
somewhat used to the balance/orientation issues.

------
X-Istence
He mentioned that people generally can't be in there longer than 45 minutes. I
would love to test that theory. Give me a desk, a laptop, and let me get to
work.

The most interesting thing would be whether or not my tinnitus is going to
drive me insane or not :P

~~~
rokhayakebe
In a room this quiet I assume using keyboard will sound very loud.

~~~
dsirijus
Quite the opposite - hence, 'quiet room'.

~~~
rokhayakebe
How do you hear your heartbeat if you can cannot hear your keyboard keys when
pressed?

~~~
X-Istence
Because the veins are very near your ear canal. Any outside sound is not
available, so the only sound you hear is those that are internal and wouldn't
get very far anywhere else...

~~~
dsirijus
And I imagine even them are not louder, just that you're a lot more focused on
them.

------
shriphani
Here is a video of the effects in an anechoic chamber :
[http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/CampusTours/Microsoft-
Campus...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/CampusTours/Microsoft-Campus-Tours-
Microsoft-Research-Part-1-The-Anechoic-Chamber)

------
zwieback
We used to have one at HP. I hated going in there, supremely disorienting and
creepy, especially with the weird panels on the walls.

------
Mesmoria
I wonder how this would equate to being in space (preferably in a space suit)
?

------
igorsyl
I wonder what it sounds like in units of noise cancelling headphones.

------
squidsquidsquid
I've been in the Orfield labs anechoic chamber. I didn't feel too disturbed,
but then I never got the chance to be in there alone -- some friends and I
went together.

Steve's a great guy. He'll give you a little tour of everything going on at
Orfield labs, but the price of admission is a $20 check to a local food-bank.

He told my friends and I a lot of interesting things. Like how corporate
offices use subtle noise from the air-ducts to drown out coworkers'
conversations; or how casinos use echoing plates to project the sound of a
jackpot across the entire gaming floor.

I definitely recommend paying it a visit if you ever find yourself in
Minneapolis.

------
sofal
I would love to hear what my drum set sounds like in there. Has anyone ever
practiced a musical instrument in a chamber like this? I wonder what the
advantages and disadvantages would be.

~~~
camtarn
Drums sound really strange without reverb. If you've ever drummed outside, the
difference is really stark - I play outside with my samba band a lot, and all
the drums sound really cold and quiet, so you end up playing a lot harder
automatically just to get the sound of your drum to be as loud as you're used
to. I imagine the anechoic chamber might be similar, with the added effect of
not hearing any drum sound which would normally bounce off the floor - do, for
example, you'd probably hear very little snare wire sound.

------
Cushman
The reverb room actually sounds cooler:

> ...a reverberation chamber with bowed aluminum panels in which he sounds the
> same from 300 feet away as 3 feet away.

~~~
Anechoic
Reverb rooms are much easier to build (and more common) than very-quiet
anechoic chambers.

~~~
Cushman
Okay, but are perfectly diffuse rooms really more common than perfectly
absorbent rooms?

Anyway, I didn't know that before today :)

~~~
Anechoic
_Perfectly_ diffuse rooms are a common staple of acoustics labs in university
and calibration facilities, it's a requirement for STC (sound transmission
class) testing for building materials and wall/window assemblies.

Any acoustically well-designed movie theater (THX or HPS-4000 certified among
others), performance space, concert hall or auditorium will be decently
diffuse, at least at higher frequencies.

------
teeja
I enjoyed a similar experience sitting in the middle of a mile-on-a-side
clearcut area on a windless, zero-degree Sunday in January in the far north.
No planes, no traffic, no animal noises. I sat on a frozen log and listened to
the blood in my ears for a half hour.

Give me a good book and I'll spend 45 hours in one.

------
aangjie
Brilliant idea.. though probably bait'sy title... I would love to spend as
much time as i can over there... If it's becoming annoying i can always sit
down and start practicing vipassana(<http://www.dhamma.org/>) that would be
fun to listen to only my body. :-P

------
cpenner461
The closest I think I've come to anything like this is a "soundproof" booth
used for hearing tests. I remember that being eerily quiet (to listen for very
quiet tones in headphones). Anyone know how this chamber compares to a hearing
test booth? Sounds like it's probably quite a bit quieter...

------
cgoddard
I'm curious. If you speak in an anechoic chamber like this, what does it sound
(or not) like?

------
thatusertwo
There was an episode of 'Get Smart' where in order to keep the room quiet the
words people spoke turned into word clouds. Eventually the room was so full
they had to eat their words. This article reminded me of that.

------
johnchristopher
I have tinnitus and I often wonder how I would feel in such an environment and
what the whistling in my ears would sound like.

------
nodrama
yes, noise is pollution. I would tax cars based on air and noise pollution and
nothing else.

~~~
eru
Why nothing else? How about congestion?

~~~
joshu
That's spatial pollution.

~~~
koglerjs
And [ugly car du jour] is aesthetic pollution.

------
its_so_on
I don't get why people can't spend more than 45 minutes in there.

I understand that you begin to hear your heartbeat and so on, but surely
anyone who is even slightly deaf (e.g. even from just prolonged listening to
loud music) wouldn't hear these very low-decibel sounds?

So it can't be the lack of sound, as a slightly hard of hearing person hears
the noise floor drop out quite frequently. (Correct me if I'm wrong here; it's
just my assumption). Is it that these sounds become so annoying, such a
nuisance?

If someone had a noise-free keyboard (maybe touch) and were coding in there,
would anything be a distraction? Would anything limit your stay?

I find sitting into a dead-silent room with a laptop (e.g. somewhere where you
can't even hear a clock tick, nor any street sounds, nothing) to be completely
maddening initially...but then after about 2-3 minutes you can immerse
yourself and do something with extreme concentration.

~~~
SeanLuke
I cannot speak to partial deafness, but I used to work in an anechoic chamber.
It is indeed soul-suckingly disturbing after short periods of time. Even a
totally "silent" environment has tremendous amounts of reverb and low-level
reflected noise: you just filter it out automatically. In an anechoic chamber,
this noise is gone, and your filter goes haywire. It starts filtering things
that aren't there. You start hearing your own blood vessels in your eardrum,
yes, but you also perceive a kind of disturbing anti-noise. It's very hard to
describe.

Top it off with the fact that usually such rooms are entirely sealed off and
that you're standing or sitting on a big mesh trampoline floating in the
center of the room, and it all comes to one seriously creepy experience after
about ten minutes.

~~~
terangdom
How does it compare to using earplugs in a silent room?

~~~
raverbashing
I must assume it's quite different

Even though some of the sound travels through the facial bone structure (like
when you hear your own voice) I guess most sounds come from outside

Also, earplugs add pressure to the ear canal so I guess this muffles
somethings

