Change in Decibels

FOR YOUR INFORMATION I was watching a video the other day of the SB-435 Hearings, and Senator Fran Pavley mentioned three or four times, trying to belittle the requests of motorcyclists, that "they are allowed to have motorcycles that reach 82 decibels now, and a jackhammer is only 90 decibels, so what the heck do they want" ?


She was insinuating that 82 decibels and 90 decibels were quite close together in sound.

I spoke to Sound Technician Chris Real today, and he advised me that the sound of something at 90 decibels would reach a person or sound-tester from more than twice the distance away........in laymans terms, this would mean that something generating 90 decibels is more than TWICE AS LOUD as something generating 82 decibels.

He explained that if a sound was to increase by One Point, in other words from 80 to 81, the human ear would probably not notice the difference.....But if something increased in sound from 80 to 82 or 83, then a human would definitely notice a louder noise. On the Decibel range, each point increases the sound by quite a bit.

John Del Santo
( 619 ) 223-0421

"QUESTION AUTHORITY"

Benjamin Franklin