There are a few bands that are well renowned for playing music so loud you can literally have hallucinogenic experiences from listening to them play live. Think My Bloody Valentine‘s ‘holocaust section’ which has sometimes peaked at a body-shattering 130 dB; or experimental electronic maniacs Leftfield, who reportedly reached 137dB at South London’s Brixton Academy in 1996, causing chunks of paint and plaster to fall from the roof.
These are the kinds of people who might be interested to know there’s a new contender for the loudest soundsystem in the world. It’s was built by the Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) and it’s so loud it could literally kill you.
So, there’s a soundsystem designed for testing rockets that is so loud it could actually kill you if you were to hear it.
(Un)fortuntely the device is not used to listen to music through. In fact, LEAF’s system was built to blast gargantuan levels of noise against rockets in order to test whether they can withstand the force of take off.
Speaking to THUMP about the project, technical manager Riccardo Rinaldi, says they test with the device in a highly controlled acoustic chamber, and when at full volume (154dB) “no human could withstand it.”
Although they haven’t tested the effects on actual people, Rinaldi is sure the it would be lethal. “We don’t know the full effects of what such high levels of sound would do to a person,” he says. “But I’d take a guess that you’d explode by the ears.”
The acoustic environment of the chamber means that listening to music with the system would be quite difficult due to reflections from the walls. However Rinaldi takes solace in the fact that they have what is most probably the loudest sound system in the world. “That is not it’s purpose, but I guess it’s a good thing. We are the loudest!”
MBV eat your heart out.
