there's a common misconception this video doesn't go into: decibels aren't a measurement unit by themselves, they just mean that you're expressing a ratio in logarithmic form, which makes some calculations much nicer. You can express many quantities as a ratio to a standard quantity, such as in dBV or dB SPL as in the video, and then you have a way to express an actual quantity with the same nice logarithmic scaling.

@TubeTapestry

Жыл бұрын

Bro made me feel dumb

@evanlee165

Жыл бұрын

I thought decibels were sound intensity

@velikiradojica

Жыл бұрын

Decibels are a logarithmic scaling system. You can use dB (mV) when working with electrical signals for example. They are very useful when you're designing stuff because you can just add/subtract instead of multiplying by wierd numbers.

@xenontesla122

Жыл бұрын

To clear up confusion, dB are a comparison between values. When you hear that a sound is some number of dB, it’s usually compared to a standard, really quiet sound (like dB SPL). Kind of like how elevations are usually made in comparison to sea level.

@Hauketal

Жыл бұрын

There is a common filter equalizing sound for the human ear. Using it is denoted by dB(A). Zero db(A) is the minimum level one can detect any sound at all in a quiet environment.

Amplitude and frequency are still incomplete for measuring perceived loudness. We can compensate for the different frequency response of human hearing by weighting frequencies differently in our calculation; this most commonly uses the A weighting scale, giving us dB(A). That gives you a fairly good indication of what kind of sound exposure will damage your hearing, but it's still a poor approximation because most normal sound signals constantly vary over time. A signal that changes in amplitude a lot (a signal with high dynamic range) tends to sound quieter than a signal with the same average amplitude but less variation in amplitude. This effect was often used to make commercials sound louder than programmes, even if they appeared to be the same average volume on a dB(A) meter. We now have a standardised unit for perceived loudness, LKFS, which takes into account amplitude, frequency _and_ how the amplitude varies over time.

@AuroraAce.

Жыл бұрын

what does LKFS stand for?

@lonestarr1490

Жыл бұрын

@@AuroraAce. Loudness, K-weighted, relative to full scale. So, basically exactly what J said.

@quadZ_z

Жыл бұрын

That was incredibly well explained! Minute earth, there's your follow-up video right there lol

As an audio engineer, I feel it's a little bit misinformative to just refer to all sounds measured at dB. Decibels are a unit of measurement based on the logarithmic scale. To label something using just dB means nothing. For the sake of this video, I'm guessing we are assuming dBSPL (sound pressure level) (also assuming it's A-weighted meant for human hearing which the video briefly explains via text at 2:09). Plus, it's more for referring and measuring the energy output of the source or its intensity. Because it's logarithmic, for something to be increased 10 dB, it is increased by a factor of 10; for it to be increased 20 dB, it is increased by a factor of 100. For something to be perceived "twice as loud" or doubled in energy/intensity, it would be raised 3 db. In the beginning example, a whale making 120 dB of sound in the water would still actually hurt even if we can't hear it (plus human range of hearing is roughly 20Hz-20kHz). We can still feel the impact 120 dB of energy coming from the whale. It works similarly if we were by a subwoofer that's blasting thumping/dancing music; we may not necessarily hear it, but we can still "feel" it.

@David_Hyacinthe

Жыл бұрын

So if I understant you well, even if one can't hear a sound because of its frequency, the power of the sound can damage their hears ?

@pinkgoergefloyd8340

Жыл бұрын

@@David_Hyacinthe yes that’s why sub frequencies are very dangerous since it can still damage our hearing but we can’t hear it either. Take a very low sound at a club or rave coming from the speakers. I’ve felt it in my chest before. It was so loud but I couldn’t hear it. I understand after doing my audio course that shit would’ve wrecked the dedicated festival goer

@David_Hyacinthe

Жыл бұрын

@@pinkgoergefloyd8340 Thank you for the answer ! I wish you the best !

@victortitov1740

Жыл бұрын

also, we use different 0db references for sounds in water vs in air. But in general, as an audio enthusiast, i hate the overuse of decibels in audio engineering, they mostly just confuse the hell out of all beginners. And this video only adds to the confusion.

@Quackadalias

Жыл бұрын

@@victortitov1740 Well, we use dB scales for pretty much everything, and we do specify the units too, most commonly (or at least what I deal with) dBSPL, dBFS, dBV, and dBVU. I don't know how else you can get around not using a decibel scale.

For those wondering what those reasons are that we wouldn't get into at 1:36 There are multiple different kinds of hairs inside the cochlea, and they all have different distributions along its length. So at different places there are different amounts of different hairs. Then, as we said in the video, the hairs differ in bendiness. This is because they differ in length and width. And there is more. The different compartments of the ear have different resonant frequencies, which "amplifies" some frequencies. The specific shape of the cochlea (mostly it's taper) also makes certain frequencies wiggle hairs more at certain places. And there are probably even more reasons that I don't know about! Feel free to share. Kind regards, Aldo

@notfunny3397

Жыл бұрын

🤦when my favourite content creator lied Literally can't even rn

@firecloud77

Жыл бұрын

It's not "resonant" frequencies, it's *resonance* frequencies. Think about it. "After wincing for many years, I can no longer refrain from calling attention to the technical and gramatical errors committed by users of the term "resonant frequency."" "Tuned circuits, cavities, and other systems that exhibit resonance can be described as resonant; but being resonant is not an attribute that can properly be ascribed to frequency. Of course, what is always meant is the frequency at which resonance occurs. This can be shortened to frequency of resonance and, by indulging the scientists' common habit of turning nouns into adjectives, it can be further shortened to resonance frequency." "It seems to be widely believed, or hoped, that if you commit an error often enough and with enough dogged insistence, it may cease to be regarded as an error. Even if this were generally true, a decent regard for the integrity of technical terminology ought to dictate the avoidance of such malpractice when it involves a distortion of the meaning of well-defined technical terms. The mismatch of impedances represented by the term resonant frequency ought, therefore, to be sedulously avoided....Resonance frequency, please!" F. V. Hunt Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Part 1), August 1971.

@KnowArt

Жыл бұрын

@@firecloud77 haha, cool quote! I'll take it into _considerance_

@sumans7620

Жыл бұрын

Thank You So Much, was Looking for an Explanation in the Description, couldn’t Find one : ( Although I am gonna go Look those Keywords up, because It’s Fun : ) So, can People have Differently Shaped Cochleae, Meaning Some Folks Hear Specific Frequencies better than Others?

@JNCressey

Жыл бұрын

@@firecloud77, homonyms exist.

As an acoustics engineer, there's one more thing that's never mentioned: Saying that "thing X is Y decibels loud" is just plain wrong! The loudest sound you've ever heard is only 20dB, or 50dB, because it all depends on how far away you are! If I scream at you right in your ear, it'll be really really loud, let's say 150dB. But if I go over to the neighbour's, it'll be maybe 10. It always me greatly when I see "our vacuum cleaner is the quietest ever, at only 55dB". Well that means nothing. And specifying just distance isn't enough, what direction? If I stand behind a speaker, it'll be way quieter than if I'm in front of it. And also the surrounding are matters. If you blow up a firecracker out in a field, your hearing will be fine, if you do it in an aluminium storage shed, it'll be way louder. Rant over.

@pedroff_1

Жыл бұрын

This, in my opinion, is a good reason for enforcing regulatory agencies to control the usage oof these claims, to make sure the testing environment and the metric are all standardised so they can be meaningfully compared by the end user. EDIT: As a note, many of these claims, in many places, are already regulated by agencies (main example that comes to my mind is Brazil's INMETRO), so, when they say "X is Y decibels loud", it is already implied "under standard conditions used to simulate the average user experience"

@WanderTheNomad

Жыл бұрын

"It always me greatly"?

@adambyte256

Жыл бұрын

I always assumed it meant measured right in front of the source, outdoors on flat ground.

@WaluigiisthekingASmith

Жыл бұрын

Its like saying that the boiling point of water is 100 C. There's always an implicit "under normal conditions" attached to it.

@jrmusic8556

Жыл бұрын

This. If you don't include distance, DB is meaningless.

Decibels used to measure sound pressure levels, are calibrated to compensate for the frequency response of our ears. A-weighting is most common when used to measure environmental noise, or whether workplace should have mandatory hearing protection. Mentioning the weighting with the dB figure is important, figures without weighting are useless like the video tells. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-weighting

@KnowArt

Жыл бұрын

Some decibels like dBA do indeed account for our frequency response. And sometimes companies even use dBA while they just write dB, which doesn't make this whole ordeal more clear...

@asdfgasdfgadsfgadsfg

Жыл бұрын

Thanks sipa, for the great link above. It's worth mentioning that even after the measured decibels is filtered to match the sensitivity of the ear, it's still read as decibels, or rarely as "phon", some kind of linear measure. So what's the point of saying decibels are bad, if even after you correct the measurement, you state the answer in decibels. :)

@jasonreed7522

Жыл бұрын

Regular dB isn't a unit of sound but of logarithmic ratios similar to octaves (log base 2). In electronic filters the 3dB point is a design point where the power of the wave is halved. (In this case the ratio is between the initial voltage and the output voltage, amd then graphed across the frequency spectrum) However, when refering to weighted dB applied to sound the most common scheme is A weighting which is represented as dBA or dB(A). Simply stateing dB specifically means unweighted.

Sones is a loudness unit that maps much closer to human perception, It works by weighting frequencies that humans perceive as louder more. So doubling the Sones approximates being twice as loud in any frequency.

@noahw5887

Жыл бұрын

Ahh a unit of measurement which we don't use across the board while using inferior units. Hate that we're still doing this...

@trejkaz

Жыл бұрын

There's a similar thing over on the vision side too. We measure radiant intensity (e.g. of a light bulb) in watts per steradian, but different wavelengths of light create different amounts of stimulation in our vision system, and multiplying the radiant intensity by that weighting gives you the luminous intensity in candela (which is lumens per steradian). Lumens and candela are legit SI units though, while the sone and even the decibel haven't made it into SI. I wonder what's up with that, surely people working with sound want standard units to work with, so I can only guess that there are so many different ones available that nobody has decided which one is the best yet.

@jonathanodude6660

Жыл бұрын

​@@trejkaz decibel isnt a unit, its a ratio. the SI unit you are looking for is pascals. you could make an SI derived unit based on sound which uses the amplitude or frequency of the change in pressure though. i cannot be bothered doing the maths to figure out what the units would acutally be but id imagine it wouldnt be too far off something like pascal hertz (Pa.Hz or Pa s-1) etc but then you arent really measuring loudness. I think dBA is probably good enough for that.

@WaluigiisthekingASmith

Жыл бұрын

@@jonathanodude6660 you missed the whole point. In the same way watt/sq meter isn't a unit of brightness, Pa isn't a unit of loudness. The point is that it's weird to have the candela in SI but not have an equivalent unit for sound.

I had no idea that's how decibels worked, that is fascinating

@Externilly

Жыл бұрын

Samee

@Sciller4

Жыл бұрын

How'd you comment so early?

@cerosis

Жыл бұрын

By being a Patreon supporter!!

@jasonreed7522

Жыл бұрын

Its like barely a quarter of the story, decibels are fundamentally a ratio relative to a baseline and not a sound specific unit. Value in dB = 10log(v1/v2), where v1 and v2 are the two values being compared, could be voltage, could be pressure of sound waves. Also a doubling in power is only 3dB, and octaves are the same formula except base 2 instead of base 10. Expressing ratios as dB can be very useful in engineering as certain break points become much more obvious than with the linear equivalent. And as the video stated human hearing is biased so to properly express loudness (at the source of the sound) you need to weight the output across frequencies and the most common weighting scheme is A-weighting and when doing so the unit becomes dBA not dB. (Although some companies are bad and still use dB labeling when they used dBA, probably in an effort to not confuse the average consumer but now actively confuse people who know what they are talking about)

@trejkaz

Жыл бұрын

@@jasonreed7522 That's the bit that I find least satisfying about the unit, because it means you can have negative decibels, and some situation where there is literally _no_ sound would (like in space) would presumably be -∞ or something. But it's a great unit for our intuition because human perception is logarithmic. I don't think I've seen anything similar on the vision side of things. We have things like gamma correction which also account for logarithmic perception, but as far as I've seen all the _units_ are linear?

And don’t forget that decibels are a logarithmic scale .

@Jamato-sUn

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, the energy difference between the quietest sound we can hear and the first sound that hurts our ears is STAGGERING.

@cyanisnicelol

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, so, a +10db means the height of the sound is ×10 +3db means height sound is ×2

@Anonymous-df8it

8 ай бұрын

@@cyanisnicelol If that's the case, then an increase of 30 decibels would correspond to the sound getting louder by a factor of 1000 *_and_* 1024, and 1000=/=1024

I had my own experience on that topic and it was eerie. I was walking through the city park and heard in the distance something rumbling akin to a truck unloading a container full of gravel. The thing is: I couldn't locate the sound neither acoustically nor visually and this is only where the weirdness started! The sound (which never stopped nor changed) didn't feel like getting any louder, but while walking, something else changed. It felt like walking into a wall of water. I don't mean that it felt wet, but I suddenly felt a pressure on my entire body, including my ears. Walking further felt like diving deeper. It got really unpleasant. It freaked me out and I left the park. However, I did so not before noticing two things: 1) all the other people didn't seem to react to this phenomenom. 2) the park was usually at the time full of squirrel and birds, but I couldn't see any animal. PS: the only other time I noticed the absence of any sort of animal was shortly before a landslide. Back then it was really too quiet just before it got really loud...

The term "decibel" is most frequently used in the context of hearing loss. Same goes for loud sounds. When people talk about loud concerts, gunshots, or prolonged exposure to moderately loud sounds, they care about the harmfulness of the sounds, not the perceived loudness. Regardless of how loud a 200 dB sound is perceived, it will destroy you. We also see green light as much brighter than red light, but a 1 Watt red laser will destroy your eyes just as much as a 1 Watt green laser. I feel like you should've touched more on the important of objective figures like decibels and time of exposure to that intensity.

@KnowArt

Жыл бұрын

The amount of damage is most strongly correlated with dB(A). A weighted decibel that uses an internationally standardized curve to more closely resemble loudness. You can imagine that a very loud, very slow wave wouldn't bend and break the hears inside the cochlea as it's too slow. But it could still rip your eardrum! Hearing damage was a bit too much to get into in the video, as we would also have to talk about duration of the sound and much more! But thanks for the feedback. It could be an interesting topic for a short! - Aldo

But presumably, even inaudible frequencies can rupture your eardrums at high enough dBs, no? Just like percieved brightness has nothing to do with gamma-rays cooking you if they're intense enough.

@MegaMisch

Жыл бұрын

Ya, I imagine this is similar to light intensity. If I put you in a room with two lamps, one giving off visible light and the other giving off IR. Well depending on brightness both might cook you, but the one with IR could cook you in a room that to us looks entirely pitch black. You might not see it but the "brightness" would still be there. So it is likely as you say, sound should be the same. It might be inaudible but it's still carrying huge levels of energy.

@bjh3612

Жыл бұрын

A high enough decibel is called a shockwave, and at that point you don't need to worry about frequency

@MinuteEarth

Жыл бұрын

Yes. In biology labs we warn about this with the sonicator (an ultrasonic device). Some people claimed that the sound it made did not hurt their ears, but you still need to be careful about it because it's the sounds you don't hear that are harmful. - Lizah

@ionic7777

Жыл бұрын

Yes, small shockwaves can still be generated from sounds we aren’t able to perceive. That’s why we still have to be careful around sounds we can’t hear well since we are still sensitive to them at some level.

@ziggyzoggin

Жыл бұрын

@@MinuteEarth this comment thread is terrifying.

It should also be noted that decibels are used in other measurements and when you use them it can make calculations super easy since they are logarithmic. Doing calculations in dB essentially turns multiplication into addition

@9SMTM6

Жыл бұрын

That's what logarithms will do.

Amazing, never thought of it! Thanks.

Omg thanks! This subject had been plaguing me since forever 🤣🔊

Important to note that sounds you can barely hear, like infrasound, can still damage hearing if loud enough.

That's why you should use dBa, which adjust for the frequency according to our ears. Mid freq get a boost while low freq are considered less.

Love your videos

Very nice and simple explanation. Animation was good.

Nicely explained

Babies are optimised to annoy parents

You have a very calming voice.. 😌

Thank you.

A lot of people have made great comments going into detail on this video, but I feel like I have something I can add. As a sound technician with contacts in the world of RF engineering (RF and sound are more or less the exact same thing, the only real difference is the medium each type of wave passes through; sound uses air as a medium, and RF creates its own medium in the form of electromagnetism) there are parts of this video that are pretty severely dumbed down to the point of almost being misleading. The biology aspect relating to the hairs in your ears is true, and is probably the most accurate part of this video. The simple way of explaining it is that higher frequencies also have higher energies. The prime example of this is the fact that with light, visible light doesn't harm us in any way, but ultraviolet does. they are both on the same spectrum. The radio waves that your car pick up so you can listen to the radio, visible light, as in anything you can see, and ultraviolet light that burns your skin are all on the same spectrum, and the reason that radio waves don't harm us in any way, shape, or form is because they are so low energy waves. There are other variables too, because the amplitude of radio waves that radio stations put out is pretty low power, but even if they were turned up high, unless you were standing within about 10 feet of a radio tower, you would see no adverse effects. The other thing is that there are different ways of measuring decibel level, and it's not an absolute scale. 85 dB in one room does not sound as loud as 85 dB in another room. If you bought any professional dB meter, there is a button labeled weighting, most dB meters like the ones in your smart watch will measure decently accurately at a B or C weighting which basically means that meter puts emphasis on different frequency ranges that we as humans don't respond to in the same way. Humans hear on an A weighted scale which is that middle frequencies that this video talks about. There is a lot of logarithmic calculus and physics that I could use to explain this, but I am saying this in a way that i hope adds to the video and most people browsing youtube late at night on their phone can understand. Related to that, there's also a curve that you can google that basically explains our brains process sound differently at different dB levels. 85 dB is about the prime audio level for listening to music, because at around 85 dB there's neither addition or subtraction our ears and our brains place on the sound, to either the high end, or the low end. if you want more detailed explanations, you re welcome to read other comments, because there are others that went into much more detail and explained it decently well, but this is the practical application in layman's terms.

Fascinating I didn’t know that

Amazing video

A free book, that's phenomenal

Equivocation. Loudness is either subjective/perceptual or objective/physical. You have to pick one definition. You can't switch back and forth between the two.

Everytime i refresh my home feed this video has a new thumbnail and title, its been an hour and there are 5 different titles and thumbnails

You should make a follow up video with dB A, C, SPL, dBV, Leq, LUFS etc. To say something is 120 dB is kind of the same thing as asking how long a rope is.

Airpod+6 drinkas+hapoy meals+ this minute earth video = woah

Igual que las escalas de ondas electromagneticas pero en sonido, muy bueno. Buen video minuteearth.

That 120db whale song that you "can't hear" will still be way more likely to result in hearing damage than that 90db crying baby that makes you want to rip your hair out... 120db is basically around the point that even short exposure can cause damage.

Unless you want to use them for music production.... thanks all the production software out there.

We are also sensitive to the type of waveform entering our ear. A distorted sound is perceived as louder

@KnowArt

Жыл бұрын

You're absolutely right. And the duration too. And the amount of overtones. Sadly there's only so much room in a short video like this, so there is a lot that we couldn't get into - Aldo

@mastershooter64

Жыл бұрын

@@KnowArt we need a new channel HourEarth where for every video MinuteEarth makes, HourEarth makes a video on the same topic but it's 3-4 hours long with a bunch of resources in the description for further learning

The increasing frequency sound made my dog tilt his head! 😆🐶

But wouldn't a 120 db sound still harm our ears more than a 90 db sound, even if we perceive it as not as loud? (if we go by your example of being locked in a room with this sound playing for a long time).

@Dorfjunge

Жыл бұрын

especially since decibel is logarithmic too.

@kingkiller1451

Жыл бұрын

As I understand it, yes. Potentially permanent hearing loss kind of yes. Video is a bit misleading, dB is about measuring the *energy* contained in a pressure wave, that energy still gets deposited somewhere when it reflects off something without regard to your perception of that event.

@lapizza7175

10 ай бұрын

Yes

The A-weighting of dB for measuring sound levels is stupid in domestic and noise control situations. Low frequencies can be as bad or annoying or distracting than mid frequencies, but A-wighting only cares about hearing DAMAGE, not if it's preventing you from sleeping or if it's bothering and stressing you out. And we should move away from that when measuring noise.

That's so, Cool

I was expecting an explanation why TV commercials are perceived louder when their measured volume stays the same.

This is why roofers using blow torches go really deaf.

oh dang I always thought it was the eardrum membrane going back and forth like a speaker or mic membrane that made us hear :O

@JNCressey

Жыл бұрын

The ear drum is part of the sequence. The sound in the air vibrates the ear drum, and ear bones transfer the ear drum's vibration to vibrations in the cochlea.

I'm glad he said bats "barely" register as audible, coz I can hear them. It's really weird being in a cave full of little teensy bats and hearing them squeaking all around me. I had someone from the city ask me what "that high pitched squeaking" was, and she was very excited to learn she had just heard a bat for the first time.

@chrisflanagan7564

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, bats do a bit of audible chattering, most of the noises they make are outside the range of human hearing, but their social calls to other bats start at 15 or 16 KHz. A human child can hear up to 19 or 20KHz, but general adults lose the top few KHz of range, ending up only hearing as high as 15 to 17KHz. So a child or adult with good hearing can hear the lowest noises that bats make, but you can't hear their hunting cries, sonar, or singing. Basically you can hear them, but they're making a lot more noises that you can't hear than noises that you can.

@kjs8719

Жыл бұрын

@@chrisflanagan7564 that makes a lot more sense than the usual "humans can't hear bats" 🤣

But, like, we're not getting this wrong. Human sensibility to different frequencies is a well known fact in acoustics. That's why we never use decibels, noted dB, but dB(A), which are ajusted specifically to match the human ear.

Forty years ago I was entirely comfortable at a Motorhead gig where the PA was producing a 122dB sound. Not sure I could cope with that so well today.

PSA: An unwanted sound is always a nuisance regardless of loudness or anything. So always try to limit the sound you expose others to, especially if they’re in need of or want silence or peace to focus or rest. Especially if they retreated as far as they are able to in order to get it. In other words. Don’t be selfishly noisy around where other people live or work, even if you live or work nearby too. The world needs fewer noisy people/neighbours.

But would a high enough decibel sound that is out of the human hearing range still not damage the ear?

Can you make a video of why decibel statutes don’t address Diesel engine (low frequency) noise

I once saw a video of sound changing the shape of a car or something I don't remember what its called though.

I purposefully, consciously raise the pitch of my voice, because it’s just soft enough to otherwise constantly have people asking me to repeat myself, and it’s easier to just talk higher than louder

If there was an extremely high dB sound that was outside the frequency of human hearing, could it still damage your ears?

I think we should come up with some other way to measure sounds, so we can choose the best one for the situation

So if you where deaf because you lacked those ear hairs, could you then be called audibly bald?

hmm I always assumed dB measured power and not amplitude. Maybe I'm confusing it with other stuff measured in dB.

I thought the decibels were measuring the logarithm of the energy transferred by the sound wave. Does it so happen that the energy does not depend on the wavelength and solely depends on the amplitude?

With the amount of experts giving their two cents in this comment section, you'd earn more than from ad revenue

Then why don't we use pascals or another unit of pressure?

That ascending frequency @ 1:03 does this weird reflex-type thing to me that makes me jump... or clench or something. While that's neat, I had to mute just to get the time-stamp! haha

What a time to be alive. 30% of the video is ads and nobody bats an eye.

01;02 Note that for sinesweep in this context, the percieved volume fluctuation is highly influenced by the listening system and the room if speakers are used (and it is not just perception in this case).

How does this work with ear safety? Does perceived sound correlate to risks of ear damage or is that still a decibel thing?

@KnowArt

Жыл бұрын

A bit of both! There are frequencies that you can't hear that can damage your ears, but it's usually less damage than what you'd get from a sound with the same dB at a sensitive frequency. dB(A) is usually used for this! A weighted decibel - Aldo

“Why you want 120 decibels”

Thats true when lightning struck near me it didn't even feel that loud!

This is not my original hypotheses, just one i saw elsewhere and agree with. Due to humans having a rather long period of parental care than other animals, it's fair to assume that evolution favored us being sensitive to the frequency range of a baby's cry, so that the parents are more capable of detecting and fulfilling the baby's need

There's also a psychological factor. We're programmed to find crying babies annoying and get agitated hearing it so that we wake up from a deep sleep if our offspring is in trouble. We even try to make sounds more noticable, like with sirens or fire alarms. So how we perceive a sound is way more complicated than just the physical loudness.

@tubesvor

Жыл бұрын

I guess that is because of evolution. Babies have just evovolved to cry at the frequency we hear best.

Nunca he pensado a eso..

so if we changed the length of our ear hairs could we hear previously silent frequencies?

Whale singing could straight up tear your ear drums at point blank underwater.

bro your thumbnail needs to be simple, easily digestible AND fills the whole thumbnail

In regards to ear protection, a sound could be within a ‘safe’ threshold, yet still be a harmful frequency?

thats true what will you choose 140 db or 140 db? yeab its the same but if you think about it like car honk or gun shots both are 140 db

My cat gave me a look when she heard that mouse squeak

Does perceived loudness or the sound pressure level matter for hearing damage? Would you suffer hearing loss sooner from the 120 dB whale song or the 90 dB crying baby? I don't care about whether a sound hurts, but what will cause me *PERMANENT hearing damage* if I listen to it for too long.

@kingkiller1451

Жыл бұрын

Perceived loudness has no meaningful effect on it's potential to cause damage, and the 120dB whale song may be painful even if you can't hear it, you *will feel* it instead.

@brized

Жыл бұрын

@@kingkiller1451 Good to know! Too bad the video didn't clarify that.

So, the sound was slightly quieter to me at the first and last microphone shown below when it plays the range of frequencies, and everything from the second to the second to last sounded exactly the same volume level to me. Not sure what normal is but the visual representations here seem really extreme in the differences and to vary far more than I actually experience.

@SgtSupaman

Жыл бұрын

The sound difference wasn't nearly as drastic as the visuals make it look. They are just done that way to make it clear which parts seem louder and quieter. If they did it according to what it actually seemed, the images would differ by millimeters and your eyes probably wouldn't be able to see any difference.

Wait so if I synthesized follicles for stiffer and softer hairs that could be surgically implanted into the ear along nerve-dense areas, I could condition myself to listen to earthquakes and bats?

Basically "Equal-loudness contour" 90db of a baby crying will be annoying but will damage the ears less than anything that is playing at 120db. Also exposure time matters too.

Why the same sound is much louder in a quiet room than in a noisy environment?

Decibels explicitly measure a difference in power, so it isn't quite right to say that it measures amplitude. Atleast not directly. Since power is related to the square of the amplitude of an acoustical or electrical signal. That's why 10V is 20dB larger than 1V. Because the power of 10V over a resistance of 1 Ohm is 100W. Which is 100 times larger than 1V over 1 Ohm.

If it is just related to the hair sensitivity, doesn't that mean it's really _us_ that's the issue and not how we measure things? If decibels measure the height of the sound wave, it seems like that's pretty objective.

@Jamato-sUn

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It is objective, but our odd hearing still has to be taken into account when designing various systems that need to work with sound made for humans. Like sirens, audio compression codecs or equalizer profiles. Psychoacoustics is a huge field.

I wonder how that is affected by audio processing disorder

What does it mean if you heard all the sound on the thing at the same volume? Is there something wrong with my ears or brain

so you're saying I shouldn't shave my ear hairs?

My dog loved this video, she stared the whole time with all these sounds.

Earphones users thanks for ear blood from your unwarned dB test....

But what does this mean for hearing protection at work?

bro why must this video come up to me 1 day after my physics unit test :> one of the questions that I don't know the answer of this video got the answer :">

wow

The baby in the thumbnail is so cute

I like help for the baby they use an eyeball LOL

The singing whale still gave me more of a headache than the crying baby.

Can you measure the brightness of a lightbulb in decibels?

@KnowArt

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I think you actually could

This actually perfectly explains why RedLetterMedia has found it impossible to edit Rich Evans' laugh to be quieter. It was just a joke comment in one episode, but it's interesting and also funny to know the science behind it

This is probably the wrong place to talk about it, but recently I've been going to places and their music is entirely too loud for comfort, so I got a dB reader app on my phone and it puts the ranges in lower levels. I don't know what's up with that. I feel like it's a tactic to keep people away because it's so loud, or it's just me perceiving it that way, I really don't know.

Man I heard a tale about swimming with a whale. Dude tells me you can feel the sound in your body through the water

There are certain sounds only young people can hear, particularly the annoying noise some old TVs make.

1:19 why is the right end no sound? Clearly audible.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, "loudness" is subjective. As such, it's not possible to measure it, only to approximate it. And decibels is an often useful approximation with a strong scientific backing.

1:04 Not exactly, speakers don’t play all frequencies at the loudness they are supposed to

dB is Volume Loudness would be the weight/mass within that Volume

I am so disappointed the video didn't start with "Hi! This is X. From Minute Earth."