Good question!
I haven’t a clue…Ive also turned down and up the volume to what I figured was halved or doubled at output but I’ve never measured the decibel levels during.
Another excuse to play with one of my frivolous measurement devices!
Perception and Watts: Doubling of power
There's a curious rule of thumb, which to my ears seems mostly true:
- To double the perceived volume, you must output 10x more power.
10x power = 10 dB by the way. We've read this as we were buying amps and trying to decide between 100w/channel and 150w/channel. We are told, repeatedly that 50 W difference isn't really that much.
On more than one occasion I've tested this and found it's pretty much spot on. Here's my question:
How can any of us really tell what half as loud, or twice as loud is?
I mean, think about this for a bit. I cannot tell half as bright, or twice as bright, but it seems I actually CAN tell what half as loud is. How does this even begin to work in the ear/brain mechanism?? 😁
Showing 4 responses by johnnycamp5
@iseland I think you mean an increase by 3db requires double the power (or watts) Certainly this is not a tripling of average SPL |
I also never really understood what was meant by “perceived” as sounding twice as loud…I figured it was too subjective, but apparently there are some safe generalizations too be made with the way human ears work. @mrskeptic I agree |