Orfield Laboratories is home to the quietest room on earth — but that's not all
MINNEAPOLIS — Some consider it the quietest room on the planet — and it just happens to be located in Minneapolis — but that's not all the room and its building are known for.
"Prince started his career here. The very first set of recordings he ever did were here," said Steve Orfield, president of Orfield Laboratories.
The inconspicuous little building on East 25th Street was once a famous studio called Sound 80. Bob Dylan even recorded part of his "Blood on the Tracks" album there.
FINDING MINNESOTA: How miniature sculptures memorialize a historic Minneapolis neighborhood
"He had his brother go out and pick up a scratch band from Minneapolis. So many of the guys on the recording are Minneapolis guys rather than real New York musicians," said Orfield.
But in one of those ironic life twists, the building went from a place of music and sound to housing one of the quietest rooms on the planet.
"We got this, and I was delighted with it. My employees thought I was crazy to buy it," said Orfield.
Thirty years ago he acquired what's called an "anechoic chamber."
The chamber absorbs sound, so much so that if you stand in there long enough and you're quiet enough, you'll start to hear your internal organs working.
"You can hear your joints scratching against each other. You can hear your heartbeat quite clearly. And if your hearing is very sensitive, you can hear your lungs flowing," said Orfield.
Airplane cables, each of which hold 1,500 pounds of weight, help keep things quiet while putting a bounce in your step. But there is an advantage to having a chamber that registers at -24 decibels.
"We can test products that nobody in the United States can test because of that," said Orfield. "We've measured, for example, the switches on the dashboard of a car. We've measured hearing aids because Minneapolis is the world headquarters of the hearing aid industry."
It's the science of silence. The laboratory also has a chamber that's the exact opposite.
"This is a room that not a lot of people experience," said Mike Role, Orfield Laboratories.
That's because it's hard to have a conversation. Role calls this one the "five second reverberation chamber."
"Meaning it takes sound about five seconds to decay 60 decibels," said Role.
FINDING MINNESOTA: How did a dairy museum end up in a bank basement in Vergas?
There, the sound power of different materials is tested.
"We are measuring impact on floor and ceilings. Or, how that footfall noise gets to the room down below," said Role.
They do that by using a tapping machine. The noise is enough to drive you back to a quieter place.
"Many people have come here to meditate," said Orfield while standing in the quiet chamber. "I just love to solve problems. And the more complex the problem the more interesting it is to me. No one else in the world does a lot of what we do."
Steve told WCCO that they hope to become a non-profit in the future and they're working on studies that could impact people with autism, dementia and PTSD. You can visit Orfield Laboratories.