Sound Shower Museum, Music museum in Saikai, Japan

Sound Shower Museum is a museum in the former Kuraki pioneering branch of Oseto Town Yukinoura Elementary School in Saikai, Nagasaki, holding about 160,000 analog records and Edison wax-cylinder phonographs that visitors can play. It occupies the repaired wooden school building, and its name refers to listening to records as if bathing in sound.

Eiichiro Kurihara began collecting records and old gramophones in Kurashiki, storing them in a large hospital warehouse. When that warehouse was demolished in 2000 to make way for a parking lot, he searched for a new site and, after a reply from the Nagasaki prefectural office three days later, chose the former Kuraki settlement branch of Yukinoura Elementary School in Saikai. In December 2000 the collection was moved from Kurashiki in four 10-ton trucks, and the dilapidated school building was repaired before opening.

The museum's name comes from the idea of bathing in sound: visitors can ask to hear any record from the collection and listen to it on the spot. The holdings range from rock, jazz and classical LPs to SP records of prewar news, politicians' speeches and tourist-site guides.

The museum spreads across multiple buildings on the grounds and requires walking between them, so comfortable shoes are helpful. Plan enough time to move through all three structures and view the collections at your own pace without feeling rushed.

Directional audio speakers throughout the museum create focused sound zones so visitors can hear different content without interference as they move between galleries. This approach transforms the experience into something more like having a private listening moment in each space.