Re: How loud????


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Posted by Mark in Ohio on December 11, 2001 at 13:29:27:

In Reply to: How loud???? posted by Loud ???? on December 07, 2001 at 13:20:50:

This is kinda like asking how much horsepower our cars have, as a means of determining if the typical consumer is driving over the speed limit.

Not to bust on the question - It's a good inquiry - but home-measured decibels is a rather poor indicator of real world usefulness, or even raw ranking of a tuba player's Subjective "power".

As others have indicated, the would-be numbers are meaningless, unless the samples are taken by the exact same standards. The meter's distance, response time, and weighting (A,B,C,"flat"), and room acoustics all make a huge difference in the readings you will get.

A spectral analysis might be more useful (would include the db info as well, btw). Clip a mic to Pokorny's bell during the gig, And see what his sound was doing at points on the recording when we think he sounded "loud", "soft", "fat", or whatever.

When dealing with complex sounds, "loudness" is subjective. 100 db of white noise is percieved as much louder than a 100 db sine wave at 50 Hz, even though they measure the same with "flat" weighting on the meter.

Mark "own two db meters: haven't yet bothered to use for tuba measurements" Mazak


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