If
you crave peace and quiet, it could be the ultimate destination.
The
record-breaking room is used by the tech giant to do everything from tuning its
headphones to making your mouse clicks sound perfect. However, the firm has
found is it too quiet for most people - and nobody has been able to spend more
than 45 minutes inside.
The
few outsiders who have entered it have complained of everything from becoming
disturbed by the loudness of their own breathing to ringing in the ears and
deafening stomach gurgles.
‘Some
people come in for a minute and want out immediately,’ Hundraj Gopal,
Microsoft’s principal human factors engineer, and the man who led the team that
built the anechoic chamber, told Dailymail.com. ‘People can’t handle it, it
rattles their brains, it’s sensory deprivation.’
Gopal
said the record for staying in the room, recognized by the Guinness Book of
Records as the quietest on Earth, is short.
‘This
is the quietest place on the planet, and the most someone has been able to stay
in is 45 minutes.’ Just the chamber cost us $1.5m, which shows you how serious
we are about audio.’
Known
as an anechoic chamber, it is a small room measuring 21ft (6.36m) in each
direction. It is designed to be as perfectly quiet as possible, to allow
engineers to tune audio devices and sound in perfect conditions.
The
chamber is within six concrete layers, each up to 12 inches thick, that help to
block out sounds from the outside world. The walls, floor and ceiling are
covered in giant wedges of fiberglass foam to eradicate any echoes.
The
chamber floats on 68 vibration damping springs and is mounted on its own
separate foundation slab to cut it off from the rest of the building.
I will gladly offer to break the record of 45 minutes. You will need to fly me to the location. Please contact me.
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