Armory Sponsor
Posted: 4/18/2015 4:22:34 PM EDT
| How much difference is there between just a few decibels? A lot or a little? I'm sure at that small difference you need a microphone to detect it, but at what difference in decibels can you notice with your ears? |
|
There is a perceivable "doubling" in sound (twice as loud) for every +10 dB. This is for our hearing.
In speaker terms, to increase +3 dB you need to double the power sent to the speaker. 
I'm sure there are many who will explain this more below, just a quick n' dirty |
|
Quoted:
The decibel scale is logarithmic, meaning a small change in the decibel level causes a large change in the perceived loudness of the sound. A sound 3 decibels louder than the first sound is something like 10 times as loud as the comparable sound. This is beyond wrong. As the poster below you alluded to, 3 dB is double the SPL. Screw the SPL, it doesn't matter to us. 3dB is just perceivable as being louder. 5dB is perceived as significantly louder. 10 dB is twice as loud. |
|
Quoted:
So a little is actually a lot. What is spl? Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small Bels yield numbers that are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels 0.5 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. ETA: Math correction. 
Bels are too large of a unit, yielding very small numbers, which doesn't really help us when talking about sound and the human ear. That's why decibels (1/10th of a bel) are used. Otherwise, speech around 60 dB and gunshots around 160 dB would instead be 6 bels and 16 bels, so we would always have a 0.x after the measurement. Then the difference between 6.0 bels and 6.5 bels would be significant, which is annoying. So instead, decibels are used. In other words, just because the numbers are small numbers (3, 5, 10) that doesn't mean anything. We could measure in microbels, and then we would have numbers like 300000, 500000 and 1000000 instead. |
|
Quoted: Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. Quoted: Quoted: So a little is actually a lot. What is spl? Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. I think you mean 10 bels, not 1/10th |
|
Quoted:
I think you mean 10 bels, not 1/10th Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
So a little is actually a lot. What is spl? Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. I think you mean 10 bels, not 1/10th Nope, I mean 1/10th, but I made a mistake after that.  5 dB = 0.5 bels.
Refer to the corrected post above. |
|
Quoted:
Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small Bels yield numbers that are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels 0.5 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. ETA: Math correction.
Bels are too large of a unit, yielding very small numbers, which doesn't really help us when talking about sound and the human ear. That's why decibels (1/10th of a bel) are used. Otherwise, speech around 60 dB and gunshots around 160 dB would instead be 6 bels and 16 bels, so we would always have a 0.x after the measurement. Then the difference between 6.0 bels and 6.5 bels would be significant, which is annoying. So instead, decibels are used. In other words, just because the numbers are small numbers (3, 5, 10) that doesn't mean anything. We could measure in microbels, and then we would have numbers like 300000, 500000 and 1000000 instead. Quoted:
Quoted:
So a little is actually a lot. What is spl? Not really. 5 dB is a significant change. Bels are so small Bels yield numbers that are so small that we use decibels (1/10th of a bel) to describe sound. So really, you're talking about a difference of 50 bels 0.5 bels for a significant change. That's really not a small difference. SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or sound pressure. This is different from loudness, noted in my last post. 3 dB = doubling of SPL 10 dB = doubling of loudness. 10 dB is a massive change. ETA: Math correction.
Bels are too large of a unit, yielding very small numbers, which doesn't really help us when talking about sound and the human ear. That's why decibels (1/10th of a bel) are used. Otherwise, speech around 60 dB and gunshots around 160 dB would instead be 6 bels and 16 bels, so we would always have a 0.x after the measurement. Then the difference between 6.0 bels and 6.5 bels would be significant, which is annoying. So instead, decibels are used. In other words, just because the numbers are small numbers (3, 5, 10) that doesn't mean anything. We could measure in microbels, and then we would have numbers like 300000, 500000 and 1000000 instead. I see, like Pascals are such a small unit in the metric system to measure pressure that we use kilo-pascals instead. I figure ed my answer was wrong, just going off the top of my head. |
Armory Sponsor