Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: Sound level meters, what are they good for?

Posted by mlsstl on July 26, 2020 at 19:41:05:
I find having a sound level meter useful for getting a realistic decibel reading of how loud someone's listening level in a room really is. I've seen an endless number of posts over the years where someone says they listen at a "moderate" level, or "loud", etc without what that really means being apparent. One person's "loud" may be someone else's "moderate" level and vice versa.

When that can be translated to a real number, whether 80 dB or 100 dB or something else, you now have something that goes much further in terms of telling you about your needs in terms of speaker efficiency and amplifier power.

For your purpose, I doubt that you'd find a meter all that helpful. Even low-level sounds can be very annoying if they are unwanted. For example, when I'm sitting in the waiting room of a car dealership while I'm waiting for the repairs, even the very low volume of a TV in the corner with some stupid daytime TV show on can drive me nuts if I'm trying to read. You hardly need any volume at all if its a sound you don't want to hear.

For that, forget the meter. Play the music in one room and then go to the other room and just listen. Or, have the person who's been annoyed do the listening. That's the only way to know if you've got the sound blocked off sufficiently.