What is The Orfield Challenge? (And would you take it?)

NOTE: On Aug. 21, 2021, I received an email from Steven Orfield alerting me to inaccuracies first reported in this post when it was published on Feb. 16, 2021. When I asked him if he had time to elaborate on what I got wrong, he graciously did. This post now reflects those corrections. (A little embarrassing, but what a thrill to have the chance to communicate with him!)

Once upon a time, the Federally Accredited (NIST) anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota, held the Guinness World Record for the Quietest Place on Earth twice. First in 2005 for (-) 9.4 dBA and then in 2013 for (-) 13 dBA. Guinness insisted on the lab being accredited and in the ‘chain of measurement, including personnel’ being accredited, as is true in all Nationally Accredited labs worldwide. The measurement was a one-hour measurement. Orfield’s lab is still the quietest accredited lab in the world. 

…until Microsoft crafted an even quieter room to claim the record in 2015. Sort of.

Guinness sold their worlds record business to Gullane Entertainment, who had no similar standards, and whose goal was to promote advertising to the winner of awards, as they explained to Mr. Orfield.

Microsoft’s room was not accredited, nor was the ‘measurement chain’. A sound meter salesman, wanting to demonstrate his sound level meters, made the measurement over a few minutes. Orfield  Labs, from 2005, had lower measures on record for shorter times like Microsoft. Orfield Labs will be challenging the record soon. 

The chamber at Orfield Laboratories still exists though. You can see it on one of their tours, or you can test your limits by taking The Orfield Challenge.

But what exactly is the Orfield Laboratories, an anechoic chamber, or The Orfield Challenge? Let’s take a look at the world’s second quietest place on earth, as well as the challenge you can take in it, which comes with a hefty price tag and some preparation requirements.

Orfield Laboratories

Since their website sums up best what it is they do, I’ll just share that:

We experience the world based on human perception and cognition, and perception and cognition are well researched fields in psychology, philosophy, neuropsychology, medicine, art, etc.. Yet the science of human perception and cognition are seldom used in formal design process, as designers and design schools do not teach these subjects as core issues in design. For over four decades, we have assisted clients in design, research and testing in the areas of human perception and cognition as they relate to user satisfaction.

Basically, they consult as well as research and development  in architecture and product  development, but another paragraph on their home page gives you an even better idea of their purpose:

Orfield Laboratories in the nation’s only multi-sensory independent design research laboratory, providing design, research and testing to the product development, architectural and research fields via the use of both objective and subjective measurement. Our orientation is to focus on perceptual comfort, cognitive clarity, satisfaction and preference as user experience benchmarks.

What is an Anechoic Chamber?

Apparently, there are two types of anechoic chambers: a full chamber with absorption below an airplane cable floor and a hemi-anechoic chamber with a hard floor. 

There are also chambers for EMI and RFI radio frequency (RF) measurement. 

An acoustic chamber completely absorbs all sound reflections, so you only hear the source sounds. As Science ABC put it, “therefore rendering the room unusually silent to a disturbingly high degree.” (Which is where the Orfield Challenge comes in that we’ll get to in a second.)

We’re talking there’s no echo. It’s so quiet you can apparently easily hear the beating of your heart as well as the working of other organs you might not be aware of. Even your joints creaking! (I don’t know about you, but I hear my knees creaking pretty good every time I walk down the stairs, no anechoic chamber needed.)

In the case of the Microsoft and Orfield chambers, they’re essentially rooms within rooms, with thick walls on the outside, heavy doors (usually multiple ones keeping the room nice and undisturbed), and the interior walls are covered in wedges of sound-absorbing foam.

An RF anechoic chamber operates the same way, except it’s designed with radiation absorbent material (RAM) instead of sound-absorbing foam to block electromagnetic waves.

Touring the Anechoic Chamber at Orfield Labs

Before Orfield Laboratories became what it is today, it was Sound 80 Studios. It became the “World’s First Digital Recording Studio.” Prince, Bob Dylan, and Cat Stevens are among some of the artists who recorded there.

Sound 80 was one of Orfield Labs’s clients until Steven Orfield bought it in 1990. That’s among the history you’ll learn about the lab on one of its tours.

Speaking of, they offer a couple of tour options that vary in scope, but all include visits to the Chamber, as they call it. The time you’ll spend in the Chamber depends on the tour you take.

You’ll get a short amount of time in it with your guide on the tour that takes you around the lab and gives you the history of Sound 80. These types of tours are generally offered Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3 pm with reservations only when the lab can accommodate them. They’re not cheap either. They start at $125 per hour with a $250 minimum and a one-hour minimum.

But if you want extended time in the Chamber, the tour you’ll want to pick is The Orfield Challenge, but this is not related to Guinness World Records.

The Orfield Challenge

How long do you think you could stay by yourself in the anechoic chamber?

A lot of people mistakenly assume it’d be a piece of cake. It sounds easy enough right? How hard could sitting in a quiet room be?

However, as American Scientist explains it, the Chamber’s background noise reading measures (–)13.0 decibels, as a continuous background sound, and (-) 23 dBA instantaneously during the evening and early morning. 

If you chatted with someone, your speech would measure around 60 decibels on a sound-level meter. If you stood quietly on your own in a concert hall, the meter would drop down to a level of about 15 decibels. The threshold of hearing, the quietest sound a young adult can hear, is about 0 decibels. The test room at Orfield Laboratories…is far quieter than that.

As Orfield noted, every 10 decibels up or down is a doubling or a halving of loudness.

Which doesn’t sound all that bad until American Scientist went on to explain this:

An anechoic chamber has an impressive silence because it simultaneously presents two unusual sensations: Not only is there no external sound, but the room puts your senses out of kilter. Through their eyes, visitors obviously see a room, but their ears hear nothing that indicates a room. Add the claustrophobic drama of being enclosed behind three heavy doors, and some begin to feel uneasy and ask to leave.

But Orfield pointed out that AS even got a couple of facts wrong: The ears hear nothing to indicate a room unless they’re walking on the cable floor, and chamber-goers are enclosed behind two heavy doors, not three.

Mostly, it sounds challenging. Thus The Orfield Challenge was invented to let you “confirm your record time in the chamber.”

But if you think, “Oh sure! I’ll do it!” there are some other things you should consider first.

For one, the price. Attempting the challenge starts at $600 an hour, with an hour minimum. You pay by the hour for the time you want to attempt and have to pay whether you last the whole time or not.

The current record times are 2 hours with lights on and separately, 2 hours with lights off (different individuals).

Preparing for the Orfield Challenge

One thing I found interesting is that they offer a recommendation for how to prepare yourself ahead of your extended stay inside the Chamber.

They recommend you “do not expose yourself to loud sounds and music for a week prior to your visit, as loud sounds can cause a Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS) that will reduce your hearing sensitivity and your enjoyment of listening to quiet sounds of your body, like your heartbeat, joint movement and airflow from your lungs.”

The Chamber and A Quiet Place

Another tidbit I found interesting while touring around their site was that they also do corporate events. One of them was a full-day program they did with Paramount Pictures when A Quiet Place was released on cable. Press, stars and composers from the movie were at the event and interviews took place inside the anechoic chamber.

Here’s an interview with Steve Orfield, President of Orfield Laboratories, talking about the Chamber with one of the press who attended the event. What I liked about the interview was when Mr. Orfield explained what types of people generally don’t mind the chamber (introverts), and which feel an aversion to it (extroverts).

For More Info

Visit https://www.orfieldlabs.com/.

Check-In

Some people don’t like silence, others (myself included) believe it’s golden. Which camp do you belong to? And would you consider yourself more of an introvert or an extrovert?

To me, total silence sounds amazing. Not that I’ve experienced it. I mean, it sounds like it must be amazing.

Pre-pandemic, my working days were spent in my mostly silent home office.

Of course, there were noises. The occasional “mew” from one of my cats. Me sometimes talking to myself. Planes flying overhead or cars passing by out front. Sometimes sirens or horns blaring in the distance. Birds singing. The soft tap of tree branches on our windows when the wind blew. That sort of thing.

But then in October 2019, my husband got sick and was home for two months…coughing most of the time. (He’ll tell you he had an undiagnosed case of COVID.) Once he got better he decided to start working from home more. (Because he didn’t have to fight a commute and I spoiled him with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He had life good.)

However, that was the beginning of the end of my peace and quiet. Ever since the lockdowns, he’s done nothing but work from home like so many other millions. I’ve actually researched how to soundproof my office.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband, but his job requires him to be on a lot of conference calls every day…and at all hours of the day. When he’s not on calls, he’s one of those who needs to have some kind of noise. Either music, a podcast or the TV. In some cases, all three at the same time.

It’s been quite the adjustment for me. Once in a while in nice weather this past summer he went to work out at our boat. I can’t even explain how much I relished the silence while he was gone.

Again, I love him to pieces. Have for 35 years now. I just don’t always love the noise that comes with him.