An amazing stat

[Benny Smyth]

I've been in bed since Sunday night, and I think the last time I ate was Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, that I am currently dying a slow and painful death.

The only thing at the moment that has bought a smile to my face was remembering a chap I met over the weekend at a gig. His first words to me were "I'm a DJ" (because, apparently, we now just skip the part where we say hello to each other) at which point, I start off being polite by chatting to him whilst setting up, but the 'white noise' starts to increase as the conversation continues. By the time he started listing his kit for me, I had checked out. That was until he got to his sound system and one statistic switched off the white noise and my focus tuned in again: 252 decibels.

Pardon? I must have heard that wrong.

I asked for confirmation and he confirmed that his sound system does indeed pump out 252 decibels. You mean watts for either your high or low frequencies, right? Nope. Decibels.

So there I am talking to this guy trying to work this out. 252db, I'm pretty sure, would be sonic boom level? I don't know if sound can kill people but if it can, I bet 252db can do it! The other guy was starting to look really happy with himself that I'm asking loads of questions about his sound (bearing in mind that at no point did I say anything to the effect of "You're wrong...you just have to be wrong."). "Obviously it is the peak figure, so I don't have it that loud all the time." Righto...

After much digging into this (and much to the annoyance of my roadie, I had stopped setting up to have this conversation), I worked out where the figure came from. He has two 15 inch Mackies that peak at 126db.

126 + 126 = 252.

Bless him. The logic was there. :lol:

[Nakatomi]

252dB... would that be A weighted, or... ?

Heh. Bless. If only we could just add decibels up like that.. we'd likely only need a couple of watts a side. On the other hand, the mind boggles how much power you'd need to produce 252dB, even with the most efficient drivers.

Hope you get better soon Benny :)

[rth_discos]

Loudest sound possible 194dB

[Excalibur]

Loudest sound possible 194dB

Ah yes. That would be my anguished cry of "how much " ? when I bought a drink at BPM last year.:(

[DazzyD]

194dB is the theoretical loudest possible sound level. The loudest sound on earth ever, according to scientists, was the eruption of Krakatoa which they believe came in at 180dB. This is around 25 times quieter than the loudest theorectical possible sound so it's highly unlikely the loudest possible would ever occur.

It's a good job the bloke who was talking to Benny didn't have 4 Mackies because, as per his calculations, he'd have enough power to destroy the Earth!! :eek:

[Pe7e]

After much digging into this (and much to the annoyance of my roadie, I had stopped setting up to have this conversation), I worked out where the figure came from. He has two 15 inch Mackies that peak at 126db.

126 + 126 = 252.



To put this guys claims into context Super Actives 15" Mackies peak at around 33dB, the loudest explosion heard on planet earth is almost universally agreed to have been Krakatoa in the 1883 which produced 180dB of noise, this was loud enough to burst ear drums within a 50 mile radius, was heard 2000 miles away in Australia, and the sound waves travelled around the world 4 times. I think the guy has got his figures mixed up somewhat, probably missed a decimal point out. :rolleyes: