Musicians Roadhouse

I borrowed a db meter to check the noise level of my house. I also wanted to check it against a db meter app for my phone to see if it was accurate.

A weighted I have a whopping 55 db of noise in my house, that's with the refrigerator, and furnace running.

What is cool is the ph app. measured the same as the db meter.
That's a lot of noise. In the recording room with the treatment (only bass traps, and diffusion/absorption for top end, no soundproofing from outside noise), it was still high at 48db.

lol. I wonder what my place is w/ the space heater,fan,air purifier,tv,kids,.....
notthat I can hear it over the KRK 8's.
and my amp is pushing out way over 100 watts.

Its takes 3dB before the human ear can notice something being louder or more quite. For every 10dB increase the sound will se twic as loud. Actually 48dB is ok for a non sound proof room.

Those phone apps work ok fof stuff below 96 db...abouve yhat they are not accurate. Or at least I have not see one that is accurate yet.

surfnorthwest wrote:Its takes 3dB before the human ear can notice something being louder or more quite. For every 10dB increase the sound will se twic as loud. Actually 48dB is ok for a non sound proof room.

Those phone apps work ok fof stuff below 96 db...abouve yhat they are not accurate. Or at least I have not see one that is accurate yet.

I was reading that 48 db is about normal for homes.

Yeah I noticed that the app only has A weighted measure. I'm not an expert, and it's been a few years since I've worked around any situation that I would need it but, I thought for accurate higher db levels, B, or C was used.

I can't remember, shit now I have to go get the text book out , read up on it.

There are people who can hear a less than 3db level change.. It also depends on the situation.
If you are in a pro studio, and I raise every Frequency above 600hz by 1 db, you'll hear it. Might not seem like a huge volume change, you would notice the tonality change. Which I guess is not really noticing a volume change.

Well I did it now, forgot about all the math..

The human ear can hear 1db of sound level change,below that it's almost imperceptible .. It's why decimals aren't usually used when measuring sound levels.
The thing is it can hear 1db of sound level change, in the range of frequencies that the human ear is most sensitive to. Somewhere around 2k. It can fall off real fast , to the point that 5-10 db changes have to be made before the ear notices it. It's why certain ratios are used when measuring sound levels .

it also has to do w/ the ears in question. lots of us that have worked around machinery & of course loud amps for years have lost a lot of top end above 14k Hz.

try this-
http://www.freehearingtest.com/test.shtml

^ that's for sure. I had a hearing test done, I showed significant loss 3k-5k. Just over 8db drop out.
To many years standing in front of those Marshalls. Plus I used to have loud stereos in my car, and house.

Atomic Angel wrote:^ that's for sure. I had a hearing test done, I showed significant loss 3k-5k. Just over 8db drop out.
To many years standing in front of those Marshalls. Plus I used to have loud stereos in my car, and house.

yeah but things like diesel engines & machines that tend to run @ a constant level over time can actually be worse for your ears.

Blues_N_Cues wrote:

Atomic Angel wrote:^ that's for sure. I had a hearing test done, I showed significant loss 3k-5k. Just over 8db drop out.
To many years standing in front of those Marshalls. Plus I used to have loud stereos in my car, and house.

yeah but things like diesel engines & machines that tend to run @ a constant level over time can actually be worse for your ears.

... like the wives talking constantly...

sikter wrote:

Blues_N_Cues wrote:

Atomic Angel wrote:^ that's for sure. I had a hearing test done, I showed significant loss 3k-5k. Just over 8db drop out.
To many years standing in front of those Marshalls. Plus I used to have loud stereos in my car, and house.

yeah but things like diesel engines & machines that tend to run @ a constant level over time can actually be worse for your ears.

... like the wives talking constantly...

and the daughter who is a 24/7 motor mouth.
I must be turning into my grandfather because my most used phrase is "yappity,yap,yap,yap"