The Octobass is a giant stringed instrument that produces sounds so low they are inaudible to humans.
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The octobass is a huge stringed instrument that is twice the size of a double bass when standing, about 3.6 meters, and the strings cannot be pressed as they are, so the strings are pressed with a lever instead of with fingers.
The Giant Octobass Plays Notes So Low Humans Can't Hear Them - Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/octobass
The 'Octobass' is a stringed instrument invented in 1850 by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a musical instrument dealer and string instrument maker, to achieve the 'ultra-low tones' that composers and orchestras seek to create impact. It is about twice as large as the double bass, which is the stringed instrument that often plays the lowest notes in an orchestra, and because of this, its sound is lower, with some sounds being outside the range of human hearing, so much so that they cannot be heard.
Also, while typical string instruments are played by one person holding or embracing it, the octobass is so large that it has a pedal to press the strings and a lever to operate the pedal, and it required two people to play, one to play with the bow and one to operate the lever.
Because it is a very special instrument, Vuillaume only made three octobasses, two of which remain to this day. Including later replicas, there are seven octobasses in existence in the world, one of which is kept in a museum in Paris and another in the Musical Instruments Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. It is a rather rare instrument even among the museum's collections, and a photo of it is used at the top of the official website.
Home - Musical Instrument Museum
https://mim.org/
It seems to be an item that people line up to take photos of at every museum.
The motherfucking octobass | At Cité de la Musique, Paris | Flickr
Below is a video of an actual octobass being played by a single person.
Octobass @ the Musical Instrument Museum - YouTube
One of the seven is owned by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and is sometimes used for performances.
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in Video, Posted by logc_nt