An English woman suffering from a rare condition known as painful hyperacusis says that everyday noises, such as her children’s laughter, her friends’ voices, and even music cause her paralyzing pain.

Until 18 months ago, Karen Cook worked as a cabin crew and lived a perfectly normal life with her husband and their two boys. But then she started experiencing something strange and painful. Most of us shudder at the thought of losing our sense of hearing, but what if that same sense was amplified by orders of magnitude, making everyday sounds, no matter how soothing, impossible to bear? That’s what Karen started experiencing in 2022 when her hyperacusis suddenly set in. All of a sudden, sound became torture for her. The voices of loved ones, chatting with friends, or listening to her favorite music caused her unbearable headaches to the point where she began to isolate herself just to make them stop.

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For several years now, residents of Holmfield, a village in Yorkshire, England, have been affected by a mysterious hum the source of which has yet to be discovered.

Not everyone can hear it, but those whose who do claim to have had their lives seriously impacted. The “Holmfield Hum”, as the mysterious low-frequency sound plaguing the English village of Holmfield has come to be known, has been making news headlines in the European country for at least a couple of years, but so far no one has been able to discover its source. Local authorities reportedly carried out an investigation and also hired an independent consultant to get to the bottom of the mystery, but their efforts have so far been in vain.

Holmfield residents who can hear the mysterious hum describe it as the whirring of a washing machine or an idling diesel engine. It doesn’t sound like the most annoying sound in the world, but it takes a toll on a person’s mental health and general well-being after a while. It interferes with their sleep and their mood, and some claim to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown because of it.

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A Scottish woman suffering from a rare condition called misophonia is so annoyed by the sound of other people’s breathing that she once asked doctors to surgically make her deaf.

Misophonia is described as a strong dislike or hatred of specific sounds, which triggers strong  emotional or physiological responses that would be considered unreasonable by most people. Also known as “sound sensitivity syndrome”, this condition can trigger all kinds of reactions, from anger to panic, or the need to flee and escape the maddening sound. Think of a sound that drives you crazy, multiply it by a factor of 100 and you can get an idea of what experiencing misophonia feels like.

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Japanese audiophiles are so obsessed with perfect sound quality that they not only invest tens of thousands of dollars in high quality audio technology, but also install private utility poles to makes sure their setups have enough electricity to work perfectly.

There is currently no definitive proof that having your very own utility pole and an ample amount of electricity makes any meaningful difference on sound quality, but die-hard audiophiles insist that they are critical for a pure audio experience. “Electricity is like blood. If it is tainted, the whole body will get sick,” Takeo Morita recently told the Wall Street Journal. “No matter how expensive the audio equipment is, it will be no good if the blood is bad.” He recently paid around $10,000 to have a concrete utility pole installed in his yard. It comes complete with his own personal transformer, which feeds power more directly from the grid.

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With a power output of 4,500 watts and 108 decibels, the Phantom Gold wireless speaker can literally blow you away. Its creators at French audio company Devialet say that at max volume, the Phantom Gold is the equivalent of a live rock concert.

The Devialet Phantom Gold is latest and most powerful entry in the company’s Phantom series, a range of high-end portable speakers looking to replace a whole room’s worth of surround audio gear with something a lot more compact. It has been earning the praise of audiophiles around the world ever since it launched, on July 14, but with a price tag of $2,990, one has to wonder, what makes this gadget so darn special?

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For those of you who like your music loud, here’s a fun fact: sound can kill! Only if it’s greater than 135 decibels, that is. You’re not likely to get such high-power sound waves on your iPod, but there does exist a sound system that could kill you – the European Space Agency’s monster sound horn.

The horn is the most powerful of its kind in Europe. When turned to maximum volume, there’s absolutely no chance of survival. It is a part of ESA’s Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF), a test chamber used to perform acoustic noise tests on spacecrafts to make sure no damage occurs during rocket launches.

The sound test chamber is 16.4 m tall, 11 m wide and 9 m deep; one of its walls houses the massive horn. When nitrogen is shot through the horn, it can produce incredibly powerful sound – over 154 decibels. The effect is something like standing close to multiple jets taking off at once – enough to permanently deafen a human.

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The mad and hectic pace of life, sometimes makes us all crave some peace and quiet. But then, as they say, too much of a good thing can actually be bad for you. That applies to silence, as it turns out people can’t stand to be in the world’s quietest place for too long. The longest a person has lasted in there is 45 minutes.

The place I’m talking about is a room at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis. The room, also known as the ‘anechoic chamber’, is 99.99% sound absorbent. The double-insulated walls are made of steel and foot-thick concrete. Along the walls are also 3.3-foot thick fiberglass acoustic wedges that contribute to the ultra-quietness. The room holds the current Guinness World Record for being the quietest place on Earth. While it does seem like a dream come true, especially for those who live with kids or have stressful jobs, it’s actually not all that great. The room gets so silent that you can actually hear your internal organs at work. And after a while, the hallucinations begin.

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This guy is the real deal man. He probably can’t afford a kick-ass ride but that doesn’t mean he can’t pimp the ride he CAN afford. Check out the cool sound system this little gangsta is dragging along, I love it. The tricycle isn’t too bad either.