[nordsieck]

> Whoever cracks this particular nut without headphones and manages to create a bubble of 2 cubic meters or so that is silent from outside interference will make a lot of money.

This exists today, it's just not a device, it's building materials. The more sound deadening you want, the more expensive the room will be. It's possible to deaden sound in this manner to the extent that many people feel uncomfortable[1].

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber

[gambiting]

Yes, but the entire premise of this article is: can you do this, but also keep your windows open. No amount of sound deadening will help you if you have a window opened to the outside.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I suspect noise-insulated fans that let air in with the window closed will be simpler and cheaper.

[hwillis]

There is no such thing. You can have quiet fans, but there are no fans that block noise. It is not possible to do so; the best you can do is long baffling. An example would be central air in an apartment building: the vents are very long and do not join each other until they reach a central point, which helps attenuate sound. This is a very inefficient process, and the baffle has to be much longer than the distance you'd have to stand in a free space to not hear anything.

[danielheath]

Depends how much air you need to move.

For one person, a baffle of 10x 1cm sheets of plywood with a 2cm air clearance will do wonders (works out to be approx a 30cm cube with a 30x2cm slot at the front and back).

You can push ample air for one into a studio without any audible sound getting through.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

There are companies that sell these (mostly to keep homes habitable when a new noise source like an airport runway affects them). I don't know how they work, but I'd assume that they pull the air through baffles and/or noise-absorbing material.

[NickNameNick]

Could you put active noise cancelling into the ductwork?

[hwillis]

sure, but the whole point was not using noise cancellation.

[aahhahahaaa]

Yeah sure but in the meantime there are hundreds of millions of us living in existing housing stock (and many rent), if a room device worked nearly as well as noise cancelling headphones I'd pay $2k for it. That's still fairly cheaper than renovating and soundproofing an entire room.

[nitrogen]

We should still press for better soundproofing and sound management in new buildings and communities whenever we can.

[aahhahahaaa]

Yeah that's fair, on the other end I think cities should take noise pollution and reduction seriously. Banning things like fireworks and gas powered leaf blowers can have a bigger impact on mental health than many people realize.