As you move within the room, you’ll hear the eerie creaking of joints. Eventually, you’ll lose your balance due to its terrifying silence.
Some say silence is golden. However, this is certainly not the case if you find yourself in the quietest room in the world—no one can remain calm or stay here for more than an hour.
In 2015, Microsoft built a room that is officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the quietest place on Earth. Dubbed the anechoic chamber, it is located at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, USA.
According to scientists, very few people could survive in this room for an extended period—at most, an hour. Because when you are in this room, after a few minutes, you will start to hear your own heartbeat. A few minutes later, you might hear your joints creaking with every movement and the blood circulating throughout your body. Ultimately, you will lose your balance, as the absolute lack of sound disrupts human spatial perception.
The silent room in Building 87 at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, holds the Guinness World Record for the quietest room in the world.
In that room at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, all sounds from the outside world are blocked, and any sounds produced inside are tightly contained. It is called an “anechoic chamber” because it does not create any echoes—making the sound of clapping quite bizarre.
The background noise in the room reaches the lowest threshold that theoretical mathematicians can approach, called the absolute silence of sound. This is the quietest place on Earth.
Silence to the Point of Deafness
The anechoic chamber provides a very rare sensory experience. Hundraj Gopal, an auditory scientist and the lead designer of the anechoic chamber at Microsoft, writes: “As soon as you step into the room, you immediately feel a strange and unique sensation that is hard to describe. Most people find that there’s no piercing sound, but still feel fullness in their ears or as if there are some bells ringing. Very faint sounds become clear because the ambient noise is particularly low. When you turn your head, you can hear the movement of your neck. You can hear your own breathing, and it seems a bit loud.”
Entrance to Microsoft’s silent room.
Gopal explains that in the real world, our ears are constantly subjected to some level of sound, so there is always air pressure acting on the eardrum. But when entering the anechoic chamber, this continuous air pressure disappears because there are no sound reflections from the surrounding walls.
The Concrete Onion
To achieve extreme silence, Microsoft’s room is designed with an onion-like structure that isolates it completely from the rest of the building and the outside world.
It is made of six layers of concrete and steel, detached from the building because it is placed on top of a series of vibration-reducing springs. Inside, fiberglass wedges are mounted around the floor, ceiling, and walls to break up sound waves before they have a chance to reflect back into the room. The floor itself is simply a suspended cable grid that absorbs sound. The room’s exterior is luxurious, featuring a futuristic design with a perfect view of the desert sky.
Gopal confirms: “The design, planning, and construction of the room took more than a year and a half. I needed a beautiful location on campus where the noise levels measured within the building were low. I had planned ahead for the interior of the building to accommodate the room after six layers of soundproofing.”
“We constructed specially thick 30cm concrete walls around the chamber to further block sound. We paid attention to every detail that could transmit sound from outside into the chamber, such as isolating the sprinkler pipes and fire alarm sensors; or lining the air ducts with additional sound-absorbing materials,” Gopal added.
As a result, the measured noise level inside the quietest room is -20.3 dBA. This means the noise in the chamber is 20.3 dB (decibels) below the human hearing threshold. For comparison, one of the quietest sounds that can be heard in a quiet room, a soft breath, is at about 10 dB.
Typically, our ears can hear sounds ranging from approximately 0 decibels (the lowest threshold) to 140 decibels (the highest threshold), although some people may have a lower maximum threshold.
The silent room at Orfield Labs, Minneapolis, open to the public. (Photo: Orfield Labs)
World Record
Microsoft’s anechoic chamber has been recognized in the Guinness World Records as the quietest room in the world. This title was previously held by a similar silent room at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, USA. However, unlike Microsoft’s room, that chamber is open to the public, making it a tourist attraction.
Experts at Orfield Lab claim that just sitting in their room for 45 minutes can make you “go insane.” British YouTuber Callux decided to take on the challenge and claimed it was a “terrifying” experience.
“We receive thousands of requests. People visit the room from all over the world almost every week, and they are always excited about this experience,” said Steve Orfield, who built the Orfield laboratory and his own anechoic chamber in the Studio 80 building, which is a famous recording studio.
According to Orfield, the experience in the quiet room is somewhat affected by the fact that coming from a noisy environment makes it hard to fully appreciate the quiet. A person’s hearing quality is also related: the older you get, the harder it is to adapt and fully perceive the silence.
Steve Orfield inside his anechoic chamber. (Photo: Orfield Labs)
Meanwhile, expert Gopal recommends turning off the lights when experiencing the silent room. “Most sensory deprivation experiences should include turning off all lights so that you are in silence both audibly and visually, without sensory noise. At that point, walking around the room will cause most people to lose their balance after a short time.”
Steve Orfield, who has conducted research on the impact of noise on individuals with degenerative diseases like dementia, notes that visitors with autism, ADHD, and other anxiety and hypersensitivity disorders tend to find the room quiet and peaceful.
What is the Silent Room Used For?
The anechoic chamber is often used to test noise and sound emitted from a variety of products with high scientific reliability.
Microsoft uses it for audio devices such as microphones, receivers, headphones, and speakers, or to analyze clicks and noise from computer devices like keyboards, mice, fans, and backlit modules on touch screens and monitors. Some products that benefit from this chamber include the Surface tablet line, Xbox gaming consoles, HoloLens VR glasses, and software that uses sound such as Skype and the virtual assistant Cortana.
Testing in Microsoft’s anechoic chamber. (Photo: Microsoft)
Meanwhile, because the quiet room at Orfield Labs is the only one recognized as an independent anechoic chamber laboratory in the USA, it attracts various other businesses and products such as medical defibrillators, sleep apnea monitors, hearing aids, heart valves, automotive parts, computers, and hard drives.
Despite the rumors, there is no “world record” for the longest continuous time spent in the room by an individual, and such challenges are not encouraged. However, Orfield mentioned that he receives many requests from people wanting to “break a record.”
Expert Gopal at Microsoft confirms: “The longest anyone has spent in the chamber continuously is about 55 minutes. I find that some people can stay in the chamber for 30 minutes or longer, while others have requested to leave within the first few seconds.”
