Not so quiet that I could feel my sanity slipping away
July 28, 2015 6:20 AM   Subscribe

 
Even though the rooms themselves are shielded from outside noises, and the acoustically absorbent material does a good job of stopping internal sound waves dead, there's no avoiding the quiet hum of some of the machines or the slight susurration of the ventilation system.

Spoiler alert: Room is not quiet.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:37 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


You're tearing me apart, Potomac Avenue.
posted by Etrigan at 6:51 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


WHATs THAT? I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THIS ROARING VENTILATION SYSTEM LETS GO OUT INTO THE HALLWAY WHERE WE CAN TALK
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:57 AM on July 28, 2015 [10 favorites]


My wife and I once toured a winery in Napa Valley where all the wine barrels were kept in caves dug into the hillside. They claimed this improved the wine but it was really done to avoid structure taxes or something. Anyway, at one point we were deep in these caves and they asked us to all be quiet. They turned off the lights and it was pitch dark and completely silent.

It took me all of 30 seconds before I went insane.
posted by bondcliff at 7:06 AM on July 28, 2015


21dB is pretty bloody quiet. Sure, it's not -9dB, but it's still plenty quiet. I would expect that even the world-record-holding -9dB room gets very nearly as noisy as soon as it has a person inside it.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


"Employees would refer to the facility as Black Mesa until an unfortunate resonance cascade in the Anomalous Materials department caused them all to be eaten by extradimensional headcrabs..."
posted by Molesome at 7:15 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


flabdablet beat me to it. But anechoic chambers are the world's quietest rooms.
posted by zinon at 7:16 AM on July 28, 2015


It took me all of 30 seconds before I went insane.

Sounds like you could use a little practice.
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on July 28, 2015


Anechoic chambers are neat. I'd spend more time hanging out in 'em.
posted by curious nu at 8:14 AM on July 28, 2015


The US Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Fort Rucker has an anechoic chamber. Stepping into it feels like your ears have popped but you can't unpop them. Any sound you make just kind of gets swallowed up. They also have a reverberant chamber (the exact opposite) built right next to it. I suppose it doesn't matter since they're both basically sound-proof.
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:24 AM on July 28, 2015


I work down the hall from an anechoic chamber. Number of minds lost so far: 0.
posted by mimo at 10:29 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


I work down the hall from an anechoic chamber. Number of minds lost so far: 0.

Yeah, but you can't hear the screams, now can you.
posted by Etrigan at 10:34 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


We occasionally rent our anechoic chamber out to writers from the Writing Workshop who think the super quiet will help them really focus and really facilitate their prose process or something. They go in there with their laptops and are usually banging on the door fifteen minutes later. It does take some getting used to.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:54 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


A friend once let me crash on the floor of his pro recording studio - sort of a poor version of anechoic. I spent hours (or minutes or days) listening to my heart beat and my guts process. My borrowed alarm clock went off like a fire alarm in the morning and when I got outside I wanted to ask someone what month it was.
Absolutely memorable, but never again thanks.
posted by Alter Cocker at 12:58 PM on July 28, 2015


Alter Cocker's story reminds me of when we were moving back to Akron and looking at houses. We found this very cool 60s' era house with this great open floor plan. There was a somewhat isolated wing of the house, and at the end was a windowless room behind a very heavy door. The room had tons of electrical outlets, acoustic tiling , and was very, very quiet. We couldn't figure out what the deal was with it until later I saw some architectural plans that listed Dan Auerbach as the client. Turns out it was the Black Keys' home recording studio and they had recorded a few of their albums there. (In a completely coincidental twist, we ended up buying our house from Patrick Carney's mother. Small town, Akron is.)
posted by slogger at 5:23 AM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


bondcliff: "My wife and I once toured a winery in Napa Valley where all the wine barrels were kept in caves dug into the hillside. They claimed this improved the wine but it was really done to avoid structure taxes or something."

Might have been Pride Mountain Vineyards? They were dug underground. The other interesting thing was that there was a very clear delineation in the caverns between the Napa County side and the Sonoma County side.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:58 AM on August 5, 2015


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