how loud do you listen?

just been playing with my new soundmeter (great fun! )

Apparently, I listen with peaks (the meter on slow response) of 94db when listening reasonably loudly, and about 92db is kind of normal listening, but not background noise. 98db peaks is when I really cane it for short periods of uber noise.

so thats..

normal 92
quite loud 94
belting out 98

what about anyone else, want to play?

 

No idea what the actual level is, but I listen between the 11 and 1 o'clock positions for "proper" listening.

 

85 db normal, 90db loud.

 

according to my swiss army knife of a phone i average about 88db during the day for background music while i'm working.

 

Is this A-Weighted?

I listen about 90dB A-Weighted for popper loud. Average around 84dB.

 

I also have a soundmeter which I bring with in the concert halls.
I try to play maximum to the level in a concert. The highest peak ever recorded (with 300 musicians) was 96 db for a split of a second. A forte of a large orchestras are usually about 80-85, fortissimo 88-93, normal level around the 70-80, piano about 55-65 and pianissimo down to 30 -35.
This depends also who's playing and the room. Very interesting is that there is only about 3-5 dbs difference between the first rows and in the balcony at the end of the hall.

If you constantly hear music above 90 dbs be ready to be partially deaf.

 

Isn't 10db a doubling of perceived loudness? 5db is quite a difference if that's the case.

 

Very low levels 65db max

 

Tone has asked me to make a correction, the above should read

"655db max"

 

I'd be impressed - that's roughly 10^47 PSI in the listening room. Pretty sure the rest of us would feel that too, as Tony redshifted into the distance on his fragment of the Earth


More seriously - levels are pretty wide ranging here, it's about 60dB avg here with Humph Littleton on R2 in the background currently, and up to 20-25dB louder *avg* for more focused listening. Silly peaks do get enjoyed, but that's not really the point.

 

I thought it was 6 dbs but anyway the 5 dbs I mentioned were measured during the low level passages while during the very loud passages the difference was not more than 3 dbs. Yes it is still a difference but not so much one would have thought about (or at least I).

 

Its a question of length of exposure.

Continuous dB


Permissible Exposure Time

85 db
8 hours

88 dB
4 hours

91 db
2 hours

94 db
1 hour

97 db
30 minutes

100 db
15 minutes

103 db
7.5 minutes

106 dB
3.75 min (< 4min)

109 dB
1.875 min (< 2min)

112 dB
.9375 min (~1 min)

115 dB
.46875 min (~30 sec)

Its worth pointing out that these are CONTINUOUS not Peak.

In my own case, peaks of 94db will be an average of around 90db...I can listen for over 2 hours.

 

My chainsaw is 120db, i best remember to use them ear defenders.

 

Probably because at a live concert like that about 70% of the sound is reflected sound. So you still get lots of that further back.

In a 2Pi environment sound drops by 6dB every doubling of distance because it is spread over a larger area. As in a concert hall you have walls around you, the area the sound is spread over does not simply keep getting larger the further away you are, hence not such a large drop in level.

 

That means "The Mule" is dangerously long.

 

When I checked this last year I think I got figures of about 65db most of the time, and low 80s at loud bits in classical music.
Pop/rock seemed to be mid 70s most of the time.

Any louder than that I don't like, which explains my early exits from most dealer demonstrations, hifi shows and bake offs!

I've always been aware that I listen much less loud than most other people.

 

is that per day?

 

Right now I'm listening at 85-90db which is just right, any louder and things start to seem less 'real' just loud.

 

Chris,

Can we assume that your amp is back in good health? Or were you making the noise in some other way?

 

yup! just a loose valve from transit (moving stuff in the lounge). Its crazy the silly things that can make your system go duff.

It was making all kinds of crazy valve-about-to-pop noises, and with a good wiggle it got back to normal!

I should have checked really..