The labs are used for consumer product research and design. Orfield bought Sound 80 in 1990, five years after the recording studio closed. He built his acoustic lab onto the back of it, only to discover that "one of our chambers was quieter than any accredited chamber in the world," he says.

Guinness World Records deemed the anechoic chamber the "quietest place on Earth " in 2005. But in 2015, it took the honor away, bestowing it to an anechoic chamber at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Orfield disputed the claim, saying Microsoft was held to different standards for its sound measurements. Orfield Labs got the title back in late 2021.

The business has helped corporations, from 3M to Harley-Davidson, measure how people perceive their products. But these days, Orfield is just as passionate about studying how quieter, less stimulating environments can soothe people with invisible disabilities, everything from autism and ADHD to dementia and PTSD. Orfield Labs helped design a sensory-friendly clinic in Woodbury for Fraser that opened in 2018.

Orfield is convinced that our over-reliance on devices and social media is causing us to withdraw from real life and nature. Those deficits, he says, don't bode well for people as they age or children as they make sense of the world.

So who's ready to reset? Instead of only fielding individual requests for private tours at the hourly $600 rate, Orfield Labs is for the first time promoting group tours on Eventbrite, Facebook and its website. Visitors can visit the anechoic chamber in a group of five for $75 per person on March 15, 22 and 29. (Group sessions to tour the Sound 80 recording studio, which can hold up to 25 people at a time, are March 11 and 18 for $30 per person.)

Orfield's granddaughter, Emma Orfield Johnston, who is coordinating the tours, said she's still trying to gauge interest. If there's enough demand, she might extend the series to continue on a weekly basis. Email info@orfieldlabs.com to inquire about future dates.

Visitors should step into the space with realistic expectations, Steve Orfield says.

"They're not tours to give you any kind of fundamental experience of silence because when you have four or five people, we ask them all to be quiet, but they aren't necessarily," he said. "We ask them all to turn off their phones, but they don't necessarily."

But the intent, he says, is to give people "a quiet experience in the quietest place that they'll ever be."

Maybe there, in a silent sanctuary that absorbs 99.99% of all sound, the mind can finally rest.

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