5 World Records For Sound

The record books are filled with earth-shatteringly loud, eerily quiet or just plain weird sounds. While some are the result of noble scientific research, others are peculiar talents discovered by people who possibly have a little bit too much time on their hands. In this article, we reveal five record-breaking noises — some a little more left-field than others. You may want to cover your ears for this…

The World’s Longest Shout

In August 2021, Japanese TV presenter Akira Fukuzawa achieved the longest shout ever recorded — he kept his bellow going for a lung-busting 61.53 seconds. 

What’s more, in order to qualify as a shout, the noise wasn’t allowed to drop below 80 decibels, which is about as loud as a kitchen blender. 

The record was previously held by Christian Kinner from Germany, who realised his skills as a loudmouth while cheering on his football team, Borussia Dortmund.

And while the pair’s achievements are weirdly impressive, you have to feel sorry for their neighbours. 

The World’s Loudest Room

If you’re looking for a place to meditate or somewhere to spend a moment in quiet reflection, avoid NASA’s Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio at all costs. 

The concrete-walled room measures 57 ft (17.36 m) high, 47.5 ft (14.47 m) long, and 37.5 ft (11.43 m) wide and has 36 massive loudspeakers covering an entire wall. 

These speakers use pressurised nitrogen to blast 163 decibels of non-stop noise into the room for a full 10 minutes. That’s enough noise to instantly deafen someone. But don’t worry — they’re not spinning Harry Styles records in there. The room is used to test spaceship hardware to make sure it can cope with the punishing noise of a rocket launch. 

The Loudest Clap

South African Alastair Galpin has broken an astonishing 38 World Records over the years. They include giving the most high fives in one minute (76), building the world’s largest bottle top sculpture (using 19,205 bottle tops), and buttering 10 slices of bread in the fastest time (52.42 seconds). So if the whole record-breaking thing doesn’t work out, at least he could start his own sandwich business. 

Another of his records is for the world’s loudest clap. His applause registered 113 decibels, which is about as noisy as a chainsaw and must have made his hands sting for quite some time afterwards. 

The World’s Deepest Voice

For the past 10 years, bass singer Tim Storms has held the world record for hitting the lowest-ever vocal note.

The singer was discovered in a competition to find a vocalist who can hit a low E, which the composer, Paul Mealor, had written into a new piece of music. Not only could Storms lower his voice to those depths, he went two octaves further down, holding a note of G -7 (0.189 Hz) — which is eight octaves below the lowest G on the piano.

Makes you wonder how low he could go after a heavy night out.

One of the Quietest Places In The World

Anechoic Chambers are some of the very quiet places in the world.  IAC Acoustics designs and builds these facilities as environments for noise test and measurement, they are defined by their absence of sound and background noise level.

One of our recent installations in the UK for Tymphany, had a background noise level of below 5 dB(A), and was likely lower – measurement was limited by the capability of the equipment.

When you consider 10 dB(A) is soft normal breathing levels, you can imagine the almost eerie quiet and disorientation of your senses that this anechoic chamber delivers. 

Still, it’s probably a good place to recover if you ever have to take the kids to a soft play centre.

If you have a noise you need to control safely and effectively, we have a range of solutions that could help. Get in touch to find out more.