How loud is your music right now? (SPL meter)

Doh, we saw Interstellar the other day and my phone SPL app tracked a sustained peak at 113.5dB.

Neither fun nor funny.

 

Used a 30 year old radio shack meter 85 db. normal levels

 

113.5 dB in a movie theater?

 

How loud depends on the type of measurement. C weighted is essentially a flat measurement, (if not familiar already) how we measure a loudspeaker's response and the actual full range measurement of sound pressure in air.

A weighted rolls off the bass to simulate human hearing. This measurement is for measuring safe hearing levels.
The OSHA scale for safe max safe daily hearing levels is A weighted, average level. Transients will be higher than the avg reading.

For example, a C weighted measurement of 95 of the intro to Bach's Fuge in D minor would be loud, but the A weighted measurement of only (apprx) 85dB may suggest a more subdued level, but just as loud.

If I say I like my music playing loud at 90 to 95 dB C weighted, that would be very safe. However 95 dB A weighted would require a limit to the time exposed to that, since that's loud enough to cause potential hearing loss.

 

The wikipedia page on A weighting has a graph that shows the difference between A weighting and C weighting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-weighting

A problem I see with A weighting for music is that it ignores the bass. Some music has strong bass with most of the energy in the low bass. Like electronic music, EDM, and even some symphonic music, and other full range music.

Take a song like "Angel" by Massive Attack. The majority of the loudness is in the low bass. Play that at 90 dBA and then at 90 dBC. There will be a big difference. dBA will almost completely ignore the bass volume.

I also don't know how safe for your hearing low bass is at loud levels. Is listening to low bass at 90 dB the same as listening to midrange sounds at 90 dB in terms of potential hearing damage?

 

Low bass has an extremely high pain threshold, (I'll follow up with statistical suppt) Hearing damage almost never occurs in the bass region. Damage can occur by a powerful shock wave, a volcano, a cannon, or maybe the surface of the sun, which is extremely loud and bassy..

 

The threshold of feeling, or tickling of the ear drum is a warning to back off, or get away from the offending sound. This can occur in the bass region, although at a much higher SPL than the treble region.

 

Here is some good info: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/bello/FMT_files/2_hearing.pdf

 

Swear to F'in' god. I only whipped out the iPhone (using the SPLnFFT app) when about 20 minutes from the end, the music and SFX really sounded overbearing: 113.5dB. [I regret not taking a screen shot of the readout as proof!]

The last time I checked the SPL was during Man of Steel, and that was about 109dB, which I thought was really excessively loud. This was way beyond that.

 

Are the IPhones pre amps accurate at that level ?

 

I always wear foam ear plugs when at the movies. Now I feel justified.

 

I checked last night and my comfortable level was 65-70, as checked with the JL Audio app on my iphone.

 

There isn't any legislation to protect hearing, other than OSHA in the working environment. The second sense is largely ignored. If someone were to throw sand in someone's eyes, the offender could be held accountable. If someone lights a firecracker, the only complaint accepted would only be a disturbance, forget any incurred hearing loss. That sort of thing isn't ever a legal issue.

Likewise, there should be maximum allowed SPL at public places, theaters, night clubs, subways, etc.

I had an encounter back in 2009 in a parking lot, as some overzealous person drove by and threw a very loud firecracker or cherry bomb out the window. It went off in the air near my left ear. It rang for several minutes. I noticed nothing unusual otherwise.

I thought nothing of it except accidentally I discovered something wrong. We had a power outage. With nothing better to do, I went outside to chat with the neighbors. There was a grove of trees across the road, slightly to the left as viewed from my door. The crickets were chirping, however the sound seemed like it was coming from my right side, just an open field in that direction. Being puzzled by this, I turned my head, still from the right side. Then I covered my left ear, no change. I covered my right, ... the crickets sounded fainter.

Crickets chirp at almost exactly 4kHz. This I discovered as soon as the power came back on, since I have a test tone reel, and the Stereophile test CD. Sure enough the left ear had diminished response from 4K to 5K... mostly the 4K tone affected, but not 3K. I believe the firecracker caused this hearing loss. (whatever it was, it was extremely loud) At 60 phons (60 dB) the decrease is noticeable, about a 20 dB reduction. at 30 phons, I am deaf to 4K (only that frequency, can hear equally both ears above and below) At 90 phons both ears hear 4K equally, the left diminished by maybe 2 dB. It has not gotten any worse. Hearing can be strange indeed.

When listening to music through speakers, I do not notice the 4kHz imbalance, still a nice focused central image. (only a pure 4K tone reveals anything amiss.. and of course crickets (or a lone cricket) always seem to be coming further right than they actually are.

I had previously tested my hearing since I am a speaker builder hobbyist.. do lots of sound testing of the projects. (currently on hold) I never had any anomaly within my range of hearing, which prior to the firecracker event, it was 25 Hz to 14,000 Hz. (currently 25 Hz - just under 14,000 Hz both ears at age 61 .. a notch at 4,000 Hz left ear.. first tested at age 29, 25 hz - 16,000 Hz both ears) For this reason, I believe that event damaged my left ear, but only at the offending frequency.

 

I selected the 80 to 89 category, but that is for a C weighted peak in the low to mid 80s. I typically listen somewhere around an 83 dB peak SPL. I find this volume level to be plenty loud enough and full sounding. It seems ideal for almost all of my recordings. Some recordings do sound better a little bit louder or quieter, but a C weighted peak of 81dB to 85dB seems just about right to me.

FWIW, I use an older radio shack SPL meter (with the digital display) to make the measurement.

For those of you who listen in the 70dB range and lower,,, why on earth do you own an amplifier with more than 10 watts? (If indeed you do own a high wattage amp at all.)

 

Because 10wpc has no where enough headroom for transients
Headroom is essential in all parts of the chain
Its the essence of fidelity

 

Try to keep it at a max of 85 dB which means that 90% of time 75-79 dB is the average.

 

In the evenings, not loud enough to disturb the wife or daughter asleep upstairs. In the morning, loud enough to be heard in the laundry room where I keep my weights.

 

That's good news for when I indulge in music with a lot of bass energy. I've asked audiologists and gotten some conflicting info about how loud safe bass levels can be. There's not a lot of good reliable info out there about it. I don't know why sites like dangerousdecibels.org don't address bass volume as separate from music volume. Especially with the popularity of bass enhanced headphones (Beats and lots of others).

 

Tell that to John Entwistle

 

Where did that come from? What I mean is, who are you arguing with this time?

 

In response to this from post #64:

 

I think he's referring to my Oto!

 

Oh. Voted before I read the first post. "Right Now" and "when listening at your idea of loud" are two vastly different things! At the moment, I'm between 55-59...but that's because it's 9pm and my 6yo is sleeping in the room next to mine.

 

Early mornings mid-50's
Middle of the day mid-60's
Early evenings mid-70's
Late evenings low-60's

Apartment living now. Respect the neighbors and such. I don't know if I would play it much louder these days if I could. It never reaches 80db

 

Im not arguing
Its audio engineering
In analogue times the Nagra had 22 dBs of headroom to prevent clipping in record
Digital uses 24 dBs
The finished produst has been compressed and limited but still needs headroom, 10 wpc is not quite enough.