Posted by D. Parker on May 15, 2002

I used to do maintenance on a Cat Cracker in a refinery. There were places on the unit where you could scream at the top of your lungs and not hear anything. Typical corporate America liars when it comes to safety and health, they did their OSHA required sound level tests all over the unit and claimed the highest sound level on the unit was 107db. Give me a break, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. At that level plugging your ears wasn't enough, the sound pressure affected your whole body, I'm sure it was at least 130db, probably more.

David

Posted by W. Mark Hellinger on May 15, 2002

My wife and I lived in Alaska for a few winters. We lived at Icy Bay. We had an oppertunity to be pretty close to a glacier that was calfing off icebergs. That seemed loud at the time.

Posted by W. Mark Hellinger on May 16, 2002

Hey Dave,

Now I remember something that really was loud. My dad and I were fishing at Steamboat lake (I think) in North Idaho back in the early '70's. This high mountain lake was probably some sort of a "crater" lake, anyway, most all the way around the lake are walls...oh, I don't know, maybe 500 ft. high.

Anyway, a jet flying along at tree top level went supersonic right directly over the lake, maybe 1000ft. or less over us. The sonic boom pretty much knocked the wind out of me. The fishing wasn't any good the rest of the day as I remember it. Anyway...I think that was truely loud.

Maybe if I could figure out how to package that up and make it available to bands "on tap" that would solve the "not enough thump" problem.

Mark

Posted by Barry Bozeman on May 15, 2002

As the posts in this thread indicate there are many facets to the idea of loud.

1)One of my pet peeves as a sound company owner was the mixer who would start the show at the max level of the PA and try to keep it there fighting power compression and destroying drivers.

The FOH engineer needs to remember that doing this day in day out his idea of loud is different from the audience who attend a concert once a month or so or go to the live music club once or twice a week.

The FOH guy has usually just come from a sound check and ringing out the system so his or her threshold of loudness is higher than the folks who just walked in.

It is usually better to ease the audience in to the level you want to ultimately achieve and leave some room for dynamics.

2) DISTORTION is always LOUDER than undistorted sound and always more irritating and detrimental and potentially damaging to both the system and the listner (and the reputation of the FOH engineer)

3) Perception of loudness and hearing damage from excessive SPL is a function of the frequency of the sound so 120dB at 30Hz = 80dB at 3KHz approximately to humans.

4) The Boom Boom Boom referred to in the responses is a function of what typically escapes the concert venue and travels further and is a problem because of that not because it is potentially damaging to your hearing due to being excessively loud.

5) More clean sub-bass will offer the feel of powerfully loud without the potential hearing damage associated with excessive levels of the frequencies where our hearing is most sensitive.

IMHO

BB