man survives the 'Quietest Place on Earth'

[krabapple]

Could I Survive the ‘Quietest Place on Earth’? (Published 2022)

Legends tell of an echoless chamber in an old Minneapolis recording studio that drives visitors insane. I figured I’d give it a whirl.

www.nytimes.com

make that WOman survives etc....mods please correct the title if you can

 

[Andretti60]

I read that article yesterday morning, oh boy how boring. The interesting part is the description of the studio and the room, otherwise I had trouble finishing it.

 

[fpitas]

 

[anotherhobby]

I live just a few miles from that room in Minneapolis and have been in it before. Many years ago (not admitting how many) I worked for an Apple reseller in town that catered to the creative arts, and Orfield Laboratories was one of our clients. One day I was delivering and setting up a new Mac workstation for them, and they insisted on giving me a full tour of the place, including showing me the room and explaining it all to me. Unfortunately, this was before I knew anything about acoustics, so much of it was lost on me at the time. The experience of being in that room was the only thing I really remember from that day, and I remember that part clearly. I just remember it being insanely quiet when they closed the door with me in the room. They left me in for a couple of minutes, and the thing I recall most is that I could hear the blood pumping thru my body and I could very much hear my heart in a way that I had never experienced. It was crazy. My body seemed so loud. I'd love to go back some day knowing what I know now, as I think I would probably appreciate it all a lot more.

 

[fpitas]

I live just a few miles from that room in Minneapolis and have been in it before. Many years ago (not admitting how many) I worked for an Apple reseller in town that catered to the creative arts, and Orfield Laboratories was one of our clients. One day I was delivering and setting up a new Mac workstation for them, and they insisted on giving me a full tour of the place, including showing me the room and explaining it all to me. Unfortunately, this was before I knew anything about acoustics, so much of it was lost on me at the time. The experience of being in that room was the only thing I really remember from that day, and I remember that part clearly. I just remember it being insanely quiet when they closed the door with me in the room. They left me in for a couple of minutes, and the thing I recall most is that I could hear the blood pumping thru my body and I could very much hear my heart in a way that I had never experienced. It was crazy. My body seemed so loud. I'd love to go back some day knowing what I know now, as I think I would probably appreciate it all a lot more.

Yeah, I kind of enjoy working in anechoic chambers. Some people do, I guess, panic or whatever. Dunno.

 

[Philbo King]

I have worked in a few different anechoic RF chambers, which are also very quiet. The wedges are quite similar to the acoustic chambers wedges except they have ferrite dust embedded into the wedge material, making them incredibly expensive. We used them to get nearfield 3D polar plots of various types of microwave antenna prototypes.

On a dare from a coworker, I agreed to be shut inside for a while. These chambers have no electricity, so no lights. In the total darkness and silence I experienced auditory and visual hallucinations and a fairly intense subjective time dilation. After a bit I could hear my heartbeat, eyeblinks, a faint whooshing in time with my pulse, which I took to be blood running through my body, along with a phantom music soundtrack that I frequently perceive even in non-silent settings.

It was pretty eerie. And perhaps strongly influenced by a decade of my youth devoted to using various psychedelic drugs a few times a week, as the color patterns and music sounds I experienced were similar to what I experience in any dark silent place.

After my coworker opened the door, he told me it had been about 3 minutes, though subjectively it had seemed perhaps a half an hour.