loudness

90% occlusion = half-brightness // 99% occlusion = quarter-brightness // 99.9% occlusion = 1/8th brightness // Eclipses, Audio Power, and the mathematics of Human Perception

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Listening to WTOP FM news in Washington, DC today, “eclipse day 2024”, it was hammered home to me how little even smart people understand the mathematics of human perception. DC experienced an 88% to 91% occlusion, depending on exact location.  News casters and commentators kept harping on how dark it would become during near-totality / … Read more

160,000 watts of RUSH — how loud is that, really? Turns out, only about 8 times louder than a 300 watt amp! And only about 16 times louder than a 30 watt amp!

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The mention of one-hundred sixty thousand watts, holy cow, that’s huge! actually breaks down this way: Every doubling of power is represented as 3 dB, but it takes 10 dB difference to make something sound (to most humans) “twice as loud” or “twice as quiet”. So 160,000 watts sounds only about twice as loud as … Read more