The two 496-foot-tall WNP-3 and WNP-5 cooling towers of the abandoned Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) in Satsop, once part of the largest nuclear power plant construction project in the U.S., have been transformed into an advanced acoustics testing facility.
Started in 1957, the site – commonly known as the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant – is located near Elma in Grays Harbor County. It was initially intended to meet the state’s growing energy demands before being canceled due to escalating financial costs in 1982.
Although it was converted into a business park, the reactor and turbine buildings remained unused until 2010 when they became home to NWAA Labs—this independent laboratory tests loudspeakers and materials for the audio, acoustics, and construction industries.
Nuclear plant to acoustics lab
Ron Sauro, former NASA scientist and owner of NWAA Labs, reveals sound-dampening materials, noisy washing machines, and airplane crew cabins are just some of the many things that have passed through the lab to be tested for how much noise they make.
The Stanford-trained electrical and mechanical engineering expert says the lab features the world’s two largest reverberation chambers and is housed in a temperature-stable building constructed to withstand a 10-megaton nuclear blast and a magnitude 10 earthquake.
“At very low frequencies, NWAA Labs can measure accurately down to 25Hz because it resides in a floating room inside a floating room, separated from the outside world by roughly 25′ of concrete,” Sauro told Stereophile. “The room’s background noise at 1000Hz is an astounding -43dB!”
Meanwhile, the lab also features anechoic chambers – used for testing sound-producing devices – that simulate a reflection-free environment, along with a so-called turbine room used for free-field testing due to its large size and solid build.
Ron explains that the setup allows for precise transmission loss testing, with up to 160dB of variation between rooms, thus enabling accurate measurements across the full 25Hz to 10kHz range without adjustments.
Speaker testing holds spotlight
Since the reactor was never fueled, the space remains free of radiation, and with nearly 10 feet of concrete separating it from the outside, it has become what Sauro calls “the quietest room in the world.”
Today, the spot is typically rented by the hour to musicians and video game designers drawn to the apocalyptic setting and distinctive acoustics. However, it has also captured filmmakers’ attention and even appeared in a couple of Transformers movies.
According to Sauro, loudspeaker measurements account for the largest portion of the lab’s operations, accounting for roughly 20 percent of its overall business. “You name it, we’ve done it,” the owner says. “I’ve measured approximately 300 brands – probably a little over 3000 speakers – over the last 10 years.”
Sauro explains that tearing down the structure, which was built with massive reinforced concrete and designed to withstand extreme forces, would be incredibly complex and likely require a fortune to carry out.
“You can’t modify it. It costs too much money and it’s almost impossible physically to do,” adds the former NASA scientist. “This building is gonna be around 1,000 years from now.”