So, if you work in a nightclub where amplified music produces dB A near your ears, the allowed exposure is 15 minutes. There is a limit for impulse noise like firearms or tools that use explosive shots. There are many documents providing advice on how to reduce noise exposure at the source ie turn the music level down , between the source and the ear ie move away from the loudspeakers at a concert and at the ear ie wear ear plugs or industrial hearing protectors.
Noise management and protection of hearing at work is the code of practice in the state of New South Wales, Australia the author's address. Sound pressure, sound level and dB. Sound is usually measured with microphones and they respond proportionally to the sound pressure, p. Now the power in a sound wave, all else equal, goes as the square of the pressure.
Similarly, electrical power in a resistor goes as the square of the voltage. The log of x 2 is just 2 log x, so this introduces a factor of 2 when we convert pressure ratios to decibels. Note, too, that a doubling of the power does not make a huge difference to the loudness. We'll discuss this further below, but it's a useful thing to remember when choosing sound reproduction equipment.
How big is a decibel? In the next series, successive samples are reduced by just one decibel. What if the difference is less than a decibel? Sound levels are rarely given with decimal places. The reason is that sound levels that differ by less than 1 dB are hard to distinguish, as the next example shows.
This makes the dB a convenient size unit. Standard reference levels 'absolute' sound level We said above that the decibel is a ratio. So, when it is used to give the sound level for a single sound rather than a ratio, a reference level must be chosen.
This is very low: it is 2 ten billionths of an atmosphere. Nevertheless, this is about the limit of sensitivity of the human ear, in its sensitive range of frequency. Usually this sensitivity is only found in rather young people or in people who have not been exposed to loud music or other loud noises. Personal music systems with in-ear speakers are capable of very high sound levels in the ear, and are believed by some to be responsible for much of the hearing loss in young adults in some countries.
So 0 dB does not mean no sound , it means a sound level where the sound pressure is equal to that of the reference level. This is a small pressure, but not zero.
It is also possible to have negative sound levels: - 20 dB would mean a sound with pressure 10 times smaller than the reference pressure, i. Logarithmic measures Why do we use decibels? The ear is capable of hearing a very large range of sounds: the ratio of the sound pressure that causes permanent damage from short exposure to the limit that undamaged ears can hear is more than a million. To deal with such a range, logarithmic units are useful: the log of a million is 6, so this ratio represents a difference of dB.
Hearing is not inherently logarithmic in response. Logarithmic measures are also useful when a sound briefly increases or decreases exponentially over time. This happens in many applications involving proportional gain or proportional loss. The filters used for dBA and dB C The most widely used sound level filter is the A scale, which roughly corresponds roughly to the inverse of the 40 dB at 1 kHz equal-loudness curve.
Using this filter, the sound level meter is thus less sensitive to very high and very low frequencies. Measurements made on this scale are expressed as dBA. The C scale varies little over several octaves and is thus suitable for subjective measurements only for moderate to high sound levels. Measurements made on this scale are expressed as dB C. There is also a rarely used B weighting scale, intermediate between A and C. The figure below shows the response of the A filter left and C filter, with gains in dB given with respect to 1 kHz.
For an introduction to filters, see RC filters, integrators and differentiators. ISO Loudness, phons and sones, hearing response curves The phon is a unit that is related to dB by the psychophysically measured frequency response of the ear. At 1 kHz, readings in phons and dB are, by definition, the same. For all other frequencies, the phon scale is determined by the results of experiments in which volunteers were asked to adjust the loudness of a signal at a given frequency until they judged its loudness to equal that of a 1 kHz signal.
To convert from dB to phons, you need a graph of such results. Such a graph depends on sound level: it becomes flatter at high sound levels. Recording level and decibels Meters measuring recording or output level on audio electronic gear mixing consoles etc are almost always recording the AC rms voltage see links to find out about AC and rms. So what is the reference voltage? Intensity, radiation and dB How does sound level or radio signal level, etc depend on distance from the source?
So, if we double the distance, we reduce the sound pressure by a factor of 2 and the intensity by a factor of 4: in other words, we reduce the sound level by 6 dB. If we increase r by a factor of 10, we decrease the level by 20 dB, etc.
For fresh water, the specific acoustic impedance for water is 1. So a sound wave in water with the same pressure has a much lower intensity than one in air. For many cases in communication, isotropic radiation is wasteful: why emit a substantial fraction of power upwards if the receiver is, like you, relatively close to ground level. For sound of short wavelength including most of the important range for speech , a megaphone can help make your voice more anisotropic.
For radio, a wide range of designs allows antennae to be highly anisotropic for both transmission and reception. Example problems A few people have written asking for examples in using dB in calculations. All else equal, how much louder is loudspeaker driven in its linear range by a W amplifier than by a 10 W amplifier? I am standing at a distance R from a small source of sound size much less than R , at ground level out in the open where reflections may be neglected.
The sound level is L. If I now move to a distance nR n a number, and nR still much greater than the size of the source , what will be the new sound level? If, in ideal quiet conditions, a young person can hear a 1 kHz tone at 0 dB emitted by a loudspeaker perhaps a softspeaker? An amplifier has an input of 10 mV and and output of 2 V. What is its voltage gain in dB? What is the difference, in dB, between the irradiance light intensity on earth 8. Occupational health and safety Different countries and provinces obviously have different laws concerning noise exposure at work, which are enforced with differing enthusiasm.
Some FAQs How loud is an aircraft? A train? A person singing? A dog barking? Not being very technical myself, I keep it handy for reference. Now which level is 0db is completely up to whoever makes the scale.
As mentioned above, 0db on mixers is usually the "optimum" level. This is information on what the optimum level of the inputs and outputs of the gear is. They use other reference levels, obviously. Since levels are all relative like this, 8bit and 24bit audio does not really have the same maximum levels. Neither do they have different maximum levels. It's just numbers, representing the availiable levels from 0 to maximum, with different amount of steps inbetween.
The "maximum level" doesn't mean anything more than "hey, go any higher and you get distortion". What this level is depends on other variables. If you aren't more confused yet I can make you. Evildick New member. Also, don't forget that dB is a logarithmic scale. You can check it out here. It helped me understand it better. Actually, a dB is 0ne tenth of a Bell, hence decibel. The logrithmic relationship is to power.
Mostly correct, but To be completely, totally, nitpickingly accurate, decibels are used to measure relative levels of power if you don't believe me, look it up in a dictionary.
So, say we measure the power of something like a noise, say , and we want to say how "big" it is relative to something else. Decibels is a logarithmic scale.
If a sound is 10 times more powerful than another sound, it's level is 10 dB greater. If it's times more powerful, it's level is 20 dB greater. If it's times more powerful, it's level is 30 dB greater. If it's a tenth as powerful, its 10 dB smaller.
If it's twice as powerful, it's 3. If it's four times as powerful, it's 6. If it 's half as powerful, its 3. What does log10 mean? By definition log10 A equals the number that, when 10 is raised to it, is equal to A. So to put the definition of decibel another perhaps more confusing way , the number of decibels is ten times the number that, when you raise 10 to it, equals the figure we're talking about divided by the figure we're comparing it to.
Voltage is a measurement of electromotive force. Electromotive force the "push" that makes an electrical current flow transmits power from the thing that creates the voltage to the thing that it runs through , but it depends on how much resistance there is in the thing that it runs through.
Note that power varies with the square of voltage The settings include the following:. Play : start a series of tones starting from the loudest and decreasing in constant decibel steps. Decibel Step Size : the series will decrease by the decibel step selected here.
Note: 6. Frequency : set the frequency of the sound. Show Intensity : If checked, draw a vertical line from the 0 value to the first peak. The height of this line is the intensity or amplitude of that wave. Show Frequency : If checked, draw a line connecting the first two peaks of the wave.
The longer the line, the lower the frequency. Pressing this button restores the settings to their default values.
0コメント