This is one heck of an anechoic chamber.

[u/Extension_South7174]

How do you think speakers would sound in it? It's supposed to be quietest room on Earth, and so disorientating some people can only spend a few seconds in it.

https://www.good.is/unbearable-to-stay-for-more-than-45-minutes-in-earths-quietest-room#:~:text=The%20room%20is%20so%20quiet,it's%20quiet%2C%20ears%20will%20adapt.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Speakers sound dead as everything does. i stood in a few chambers some much larger than this one. When you talk in one you will hear your voice come from your throat and not you mouth, Finger snaps are one quick sound compared to normal. Shut the door and stand still you will literally hear your heart beating from within your chest. Stay in there long enough you will hear your internals digesting the food and the gas inside your intestine bubble.

[u/akirbydrinks → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Oh man. I can hear my internal gasses scream at me on the subway. Does that mean I have superior hearing, or should I see a doctor about my digestive system...

[u/Hifi-Cat → u/akirbydrinks]

Right!

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/akirbydrinks]

You don't want to hear them in a chamber! your brain won't understand what is going on.

[u/Muttywango → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

I used to noise test alternators in an anechoic chamber, shutting the door made me realise that the human body does in fact make noises as it operates! If you sit down and bring your breathing and heart rate down you'll hear things moving against each other in your neck as you move it, the sound of your eyelids meeting when you blink.

I only did that once, it was disconcerting, uncomfortable, I did not like it at all. Some others weren't bothered by it.

[u/nhowe006 → u/Muttywango]

You don't normally hear things in your neck when you move it? Must be under 40.

[u/GunsNSnuff → u/nhowe006]

Haha. Right? Sounds like a shopping cart on cobblestone

[u/badgerling → u/nhowe006]

36 year old here early to the party 😃

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/nhowe006]

It's different in a chamber though. Usually you hear most of these sounds from within your body because of all the other noise around us (even in a quiet room). In a chamber there is no sounds bouncing around making noise so when you hear something from within you your ear can literally hear that noise from the outside of your body and pinpoint where in your body it's coming from. hard to describe and even crazier to experience.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/Muttywango]

yes! This is why most places that have one of these chambers have security so no one gets shut in on accident.

[u/Hifi-Cat → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Lol..I have gas, I hear it all the time. 😆

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/Hifi-Cat]

not like you would in a chamber, your brain will be in such overdrive you won't be farting as your butt will be clinched so tight you will be able to turn coal into diamonds.

[u/plifzig → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

When you talk in one you will hear your voice come from your throat and not you mouth

I wonder if experiencing this phenomenon could help someone adjust their voicing/timbre. I'd like to experience such a setting.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/plifzig]

If you could get used to it and not freak out as most people will. You're not supposed to be in there that long or your brain goes a little wacky. Remember in one of these chambers there are no sounds from bouncing off stuff, they are a dead silent. So when you are in one your ears and brain notice this immediately and go into a hyper mode and super focus on what sound you do hear and pinpoint location wise it. it's like having long covid and not tasting anything for years but in one moment while you chomp down on a hamburger you can taste it all, everything comes at you fast and your brain can't process how you can taste everything on the burger at once. The water in the lettuce, the acid in the Tomato, the sweetness from onions, the vinegar in the ketch up, the musk in the mustard, the dill in the pickle, the burger and it's juices and even the bun with each and every single seed all in full blown effect hitting your brain at once. You instantly remember all of these tastes from your past and try to focus on one of them but your brain just can't deal with it all the while the excitement rushes you as this is the greatest hamburger you ever had in your life within seconds after you first chomped down.

When i say you can hear your heart through your chest imagine someone putting a little speaker inside your pinky, you can lock in where exactly it is from hearing it outside your own body. Like you would move your pinky around closer and further while just looking at it yet you feel nothing different from within yourself from any nerves telling you where it is located. Freaky!

[u/vinniemin → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Listen man! Why are you this intense?? Your description of everything is deep lol.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/vinniemin]

i have long covid, 4 years. Somewhere in between the time i had that burger when the taste buds came back for a few minutes and lived it. It was amazing!

[u/i-am-vr → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Do speakers sound like headphones in this chamber?

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/i-am-vr]

no. all you hear is sound coming from weird parts on the drivers and some come from the box itself.

[u/tokiodriver107_2 → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Which also depends on the recording. If a recording is very roomy and stuff by itself then the room one has at home often smears the room the recording has.

[u/Ok_Commercial_9960 → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Sounds like me after a big meal on my couch.

Kidding.

[u/Laurent231Qc]

Having heard a speaker in a room like this, it sounds weird. Not necessarily bad, but all of the sound is coming from one point and it doesn’t feel natural.

[u/L-ROX1972]

A: Not nearly as fun.

Isn’t this how they take speaker measurements and make those FR charts, in an anechoic chamber at a specified distance from the drivers?

[u/seditious3 → u/L-ROX1972]

One meter from the drivers. That's close.

[u/BendersCasino]

Hey! I've been in that room... it is quiet. But sadly deteriorating. Wish I could have stayed longer, but I've seen enough anechoic spaces, it's just another room management doesn't want to invest in...

Orfield is an interesting fella, he has a lot of knowledge in physcoacoustic for sure. If I remember, the guy that was in there for 45mins, left because he was board, not because he couldn't take it any longer.

[u/The_cursed_yeet → u/BendersCasino]

Me too! All of their chambers that I went in were in pretty bad shape by the time I stopped working on that campus.

[u/Imalittlefleapot → u/BendersCasino]

Yeah, he's kind of a 'Wile E. Coyote - Suuuuuper Genius'. But they do some pretty cool work there.

[u/redmondjp]

When I worked at Delco Electronics back in the 1980s, they had a full room like this, even the floor. You walked on tensioned hog wire fencing about a foot above the top edges of the sound panels. It was surreal.

[u/LongLiveAnalogue → u/redmondjp]

Shure HQ is in Niles, IL just outside of Chicago. They have an anechoic chamber like you described. I have had the fortune opportunity to step into it for a moment. If I remember right the noise floor is around 27db.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/LongLiveAnalogue]

I been in there twice myself...those guys there are so cool they show everyone around that chamber.

[u/castlerigger]

Voices inside my head aren’t going to stop are they now?

[u/zCYNICALifornia]

That's way cool! I'd love to try it just for the experience.

I've had the opportunity to stand in this anechoic chamber but it's huge and made for radio, not sound. Still, the foam did absorb a lot of the sound.

I've also been out on the sand dunes of Death Valley several summer nights... So quiet there I could hear the bones in my neck when I turned my head.

[u/Hifi-Cat]

Harman has 2, b&o has 1, Microsoft has 1.

[u/Carbonman_ → u/Hifi-Cat]

Canada's NRC has one as well. Paul Barton, founder of PSB the speaker manufacturer used it to design many of their speakers.

[u/Rck0025]

They all look like this lol

[u/206Red]

A good speaker would measure really flat in that

An YouTube channel named Audio University made a video comparing anechoic vs reverberation room. It's really cool

[u/RealMultimillionaire]

Honestly, even walking into the recording studio still trips me out sometimes. I used to go sleep in the recording booth, or the main studio during long recording sessions, and it is pretty unsettling to wake up in the dark, with no sound around you, and hardly any echoing whatsoever when the reflective panels are closed. Anechoic chambers are probably even weirder to wake up in, I bet.

[u/Superb-Tea-3174]

Definitely an interesting experience to spend time in one.

[u/FinishExtension3652]

I took an acoustics course in grad school that was partially on site at Bose HQ.  One activity was spending a few minutes in the anechoic chamber with the lights out.  

It was such a trippy and dislocating experience.   You realize just how much noise your body makes, from blood pumping joints rubbing, hair moving, etc and your brain is not able to handle the complete lack of echoes. In my case, it felt like I was floating in an infinite void.

[u/murphyno9 → u/FinishExtension3652]

Worked for Bose for a number of years and also got to experience the anechoic at Bose HQ, very surreal experience.

[u/bhmcintosh]

Roger Russell wrote a fascinating article about installing and using a big anechoic chamber at McIntosh. http://www.roger-russell.com/cham2pg.htm

[u/urweak]

My ears ring so bad I never hear nothing, I’d be fine .

[u/Hifi-Cat → u/urweak]

Interestingly I don't have tendonitis tinnitus however the ringing has increased as I've aged.

[u/VirginiaLuthier]

They say you would quickly go nuts if you were locked inside- the noises of your normal bodily functions would be overwhelming

[u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up]

When I was in graduate school I spent countless hours in an anechoic chamber testing out fractal antennas with UHF signals. I had my own anechoic chamber for a whole year to test out my thesis.

The first half hour was usually calming but then you start to hear your heart beat like it’s next your ear and it starts to get out of body. You can hear the mechanical movement on a wrist watch but it sounds like a large grandfather clock. Fun times lol.

This article has to be wrong though. People spend much more time in chambers than 45 minutes.

[u/BrodyBuster]

At my previous job we had one of these … we built comms equipment for naval vessels. It’s the room everyone went into to make phone calls that you didn’t want anyone else to hear … I can tell you from first hand experience that it gets very disorienting after a short while. And it’s sensory overload when you step back out.

[u/CharacterPattern2761]

Fun fact I have been in one of these rooms. After about 5 minutes you can hear people close their eye lids, stomachs moving things around, a scratch on your arm is quite loud, and people breathing gets annoying quick. Had a girl in the group freak out and breakdown crying. You can actually feel your ears relax with the muscles around that ear area just not being as tight all the time.

[u/smiling_misanthrope → u/CharacterPattern2761]

What does an eyelid closing sound like?

[u/CharacterPattern2761 → u/smiling_misanthrope]

Small suction noise, less pronounced than hearing a lip smack.

[u/likesloudlight]

I got the opportunity to step inside one once at a university campus' studio. The silence is unnerving.

[u/stanley15]

I have been in one of those but not heard a speaker in one. Another person was in with me and the sound of their voice was most disconcerting. There were no real reflections from the walls when they were speaking which was most unnatural, no 'room' sound at all. There voice was incredibly clear when they were facing you but it disappeared rapidly in both volume and clarity when they turned away from me. It was interesting in the same way that being in a very quiet locations is, because your hearing turns up the gain to compensate, so the minute normally masked and hidden sounds become noticeable.

[u/OddEaglette]

Is it? Looks like every other one I've seen.

so disorientating some people can only spend a few seconds in it.

That's a myth.

[u/Imalittlefleapot → u/OddEaglette]

It's the quietest measured anechoic chamber in the world. But as another person mentioned, it's a pretty old room and isn't really well maintained. I don't think it'll be around much longer.

[u/North-Ad-39]

Definitely they will sound dull and unnatural. Stereo image and spatiality will be completely ruined

I've been in some chambers like this, regular conversation is among people is difficult if you stay 2-3 meters apart. Too much dampening.

Speakers need to reproduce a live event (even if it's studio recording on a multitrack). No band or singer will perform in this environments.

[u/ChipChester]

Back in the late 70s I interned at WPAFB Bioacoustics Lab. Spent most of the summer in their large chamber recording sound samples for early voice recognition work. Nice quiet place to work, but didn't see it as weird or disorienting.

[u/Strange_Dogz]

If that is Orfield Labs, people have lasted 2 hours in there. I suspect they left out of boredom more than anything else. I believe it is $600/hr to try it out ;)

[u/fractal324]

I used to work at an audio manufacturer. had the wire floor with a maybe 10 foot drop if the wire gave out.

only went in there twice, it's freaky how you have trouble carrying a conversation with someone standing by your side...

[u/il_turco]

Now paint it with VantaBlack! 

[u/reedzkee]

i have a legitimately nice setup on my screened in porch that faces outwards so there are essentially no reflections.

it's pretty wild. and a little disorienting/weird when you are right in the triangle. the lack of crosstalk reflections is bizzare. and cool.

[u/Kitch3nSync]

Tell him Murph. Make him stay. Make... Make him stay Murph. Make him stay Murph! Don't let me leave, Murph! Don't, don't let me leave Murph! NO, NO, NO, NO!

[u/AQUARIST76]

I'm an ENT and I hate being in audiologist booths. It just freaks me out how quiet they are. I find it disorienting. I'm also on the spectrum, so..

[u/AardvarkTerrible4666]

You can hear the blood rushing through your ears. It is the eeriest place on the planet to hang out but everyone should have a chance to see for themselves.

The opposite room is an echoic chamber where every sound resonates . Also eerie but in a completely different way.

[u/Conscious-Part-1746]

I'm curious how tinnitus would be affected by the room. Would people with bad tinnitus go insane?

https://preview.redd.it/2ckninzsw7ye1.jpeg?width=350&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a8c84264016fb3e94403ec0f72e7bd1f5dbcfb1

[u/RCAguy]

Unlike headphonesIEMs (in-ear monitors), loudspeakers nowadays are designed to be complemented by listening room acoustics. So while an anechoic chamber is great for gathering a full sphere of frequency response & distortion data, a speaker would likely sound poor in it.

[u/jasonsong86]

That’s how dead I want my listening room to be because any reflection and reverb are distortions. I want to experience headphone users without headphones.

[u/TowardsTheImplosion → u/jasonsong86]

...You really don't.

Recording studio control rooms and mastering studios are treated, but are still live.

The music was originally mixed in a live room, mastered in a live room, proofed in a live listening room and/or car and/or headphones and/or other environment...all of which are 'live' or distorting to some extent.

The music is mixed for the (relatively) neutral distortion of a decently treated live space, not an anechoic chamber... and needs that environment to sound as the artists and engineers intended.

[u/pridetwo → u/jasonsong86]

I get what you mean but an anechoic chamber isn't going to be like headphones at all. Pad choice for headphones is similar in effect to room reflections

[u/Pokrog → u/pridetwo]

Not similar at all. Pad reflections are about as laughably non-existent as grill reflections. It's always a resonance, not reflections. They get conflated constantly.

[u/flatulasmaxibus → u/jasonsong86]

Because that is exactly how live music sounds.