Articles & Guides
Educational content about sound measurement, noise levels, and hearing safety.
Popular Noise Questions
Noise Levels and Decibels: How to Read Any Figure You Meet
Decibel charts are everywhere and sources are rare. This guide teaches you to interrogate a figure instead of trusting it, and shows where real documentation exists.
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Daily Noise Exposure: How the Published Limits Are Built
Duration is the part of noise exposure that gets left out. This page explains how the published frameworks combine level and time, in their own terms.
How Loud Is Traffic Noise?
Traffic noise is not a sound with a level; it is an aggregate that depends on how many vehicles, how fast, how heavy, and how far away you are. Here is what the regulatory and modelling record does establish.
Construction Noise Rules: What OSHA and NIOSH Actually Require
Construction noise guidance is quoted constantly and cited rarely. This page separates the enforceable limit, the health-based recommendation, and the European scheme.
Noise and Sleep: What WHO Guidance Actually Measures
There is no published decibel limit for a bedroom. The guidance everyone quotes measures something quite different, and the difference matters.
Measuring Noise Outdoors: What the Standards Require
Outdoors, the measurement position and the weather often matter more than the source. Here is what the standards actually govern, and what a phone can honestly contribute.
How Loud Is a Concert or Festival?
Concert loudness is one of the few sound questions with real regulatory numbers attached. The WHO standard, Swiss ordinance and Flemish rules all set ceilings — and they set them on different averaging times, which changes everything.
How Loud Is a Vacuum Cleaner? What the Label Actually Measures
Every vacuum sold in the EU carries a decibel figure on its label, and it is not the level you hear. The distinction is the whole story on this page — and the reason we will not give you a single number.
How Loud Is a Dog's Bark? What Kennel Dosimetry Shows
The documented evidence about barking is about kennel workers' shift exposure, not about one dog at one metre. The difference changes the answer completely.
How Loud Is a Motorcycle? Decibel Levels Explained
"How loud is a motorcycle" has two answers that barely overlap: what the law measures as it rides past, and what the rider's own ears receive at speed. Wind noise, not the exhaust, dominates the second one.
How Loud Is a Leaf Blower? What the Label Actually Measures
Leaf blowers are labelled, tested and disputed — but the one thing we could not find was a verifiable published sound level from a source that states its method. This page explains that honestly.
How Loud Is a Lawn Mower? Decibel Levels by Mower Type
Push mower, ride-on, robot — the published figures differ by more than 30 dB, and the number on the label is not the number at your ears. Here is the measured data, by mower type.
How Loud Is Thunder? Why Meteorologists Publish No Figure
Thunder is the loudest natural sound most people ever hear, and the agencies that study lightning deliberately publish no decibel value for it. Here is why.
How Loud Is a Gunshot? — Decibel Levels by Firearm Type
Gunfire is the clearest case on this site of a sound that consumer measurement cannot touch — and the research literature explains precisely why, with numbers.
How Loud Is a Baby's Cry? Why the Usual Figure Has No Source
Almost every page about infant crying quotes the same number. We went looking for the measurement behind it and could not find one.
How Loud Is a Dishwasher? What the Energy Label Declares
Dishwashers are one of the few sounds in the home with a genuinely documented number — but it is a sound power declaration, not a level measured at your kitchen table.
How Loud Is a Washing Machine? Only the Spin Is Declared
The label answers a narrower question than most people are asking: it declares the spin, and nothing else.
How Loud Is a Power Drill? Decibel Levels and Safety
A driver-drill, an impact driver and a rotary hammer in masonry are three different acoustic problems. Declared manufacturer data and one NIOSH concrete-drilling study show how far apart they are.
How Loud Is a Helicopter? Certified Levels by Model and Flight Condition
Helicopter noise is certified as an overflight event, measured in the cockpit as an occupational exposure, and experienced on the ground as something else again. The published numbers are model-specific.
How Loud Is a Subway Train? Decibel Levels Underground
Subway noise has unusually good published data: hundreds of dosimeter measurements in New York and a 15-line survey in Seoul. The averages are moderate; the peaks are not.
How Loud Is a School Classroom? Noise & Learning Impact
Classroom acoustics is one of the best-regulated areas in this whole subject — for empty rooms. What an occupied classroom actually measures is far less well documented, and this page says so.
How Loud Is Snoring? Measured Levels and What They Indicate
Snoring loudness turns out to track a medical variable, which makes it one of the few sound levels with genuine diagnostic meaning.
How Loud Is a Car? What the Pass-By Test Actually Measures
A car's only officially measured loudness is a standardised pass-by test at 7.5 metres. That number is a ceiling for approval, not a description of the car in your street.
At What Level Does Hearing Damage Start? Why No Line Exists
The most common question about noise has no numeric answer. This page explains what the evidence supports instead of inventing a threshold.
Decibel Comparison: Which Figures Are Actually Documented
A comparison chart is only useful if every row states what kind of figure it is. This one drops every number we could not trace to a publisher and a method.
Why Are Decibels Logarithmic? The Definition, Exactly
The decibel is not a unit of loudness. It is a ratio on a logarithmic scale, and once you see the definition the confusing rules stop being arbitrary.
How Accurate Are Phone Decibel Meters?
Two research groups have tested phone sound meters properly — one at NIOSH, one across 100 handsets in a reverberation room. Their findings are more specific, and more useful, than "phones are inaccurate".
The Mosquito Tone Test: What a Browser Test Cannot Tell You
High-frequency hearing really does decline with age. A tone played through your own speakers still cannot measure it, and here is precisely why.
How Loud Is 40 Decibels? Which Documented Figures Sit There
Around 40 decibels sit two genuinely documented figures that are not comparable with each other — an EPA indoor environmental level and an appliance sound power declaration.
How Loud Is 60 Decibels? A Scale Position, Not a Criterion
60 decibels is the most quoted figure in decibel content and one of the least documented. Here is what regulators and researchers actually publish around it.
How Loud Is 70 Decibels? The One Environmental Criterion
Of all the round decibel numbers, 70 is the one with a genuine government definition behind it — and that definition is an average over a full day.
85 Decibels: Whose Criterion It Is and What It Means
85 decibels appears everywhere as if it were a law of nature. It is actually a criterion, set by named bodies, for a specific averaging period and a specific setting.
How Loud Is 90 Decibels? A Regulatory Limit, Not a Sound
90 decibels is one of the few round figures with a legal definition behind it — and that definition is about a shift average, not about any particular sound.
How Loud Is 100 Decibels? Where the Criteria Get Short
At 100 decibels the two American exposure frameworks diverge sharply, and the difference between them is larger than most content admits.
How Loud Is 120 Decibels? No Authority Defines This Number
120 decibels is treated everywhere as the pain threshold. We could not find a regulator, standards body or study that defines it as anything at all.
How Loud Are Fireworks? (Decibel Levels + Safety)
Firework loudness depends almost entirely on where the microphone is and which metric is used. A regulatory test at 15 metres and an injury measurement at 2 metres differ by 40 decibels or more.
How Loud Is a Chainsaw? (Decibel Levels & Hearing Risk)
A chainsaw has three different published sound levels — the operator's ear, the CE label's sound power, and the level a bystander hears — and they are not interchangeable. Here is what each one actually measures.
How Loud Is a Jackhammer? Why No Single Number Holds Up
A jackhammer is one of the loudest sounds most people meet on an ordinary street, and it is also one of the worst documented. Here is what published sources really contain.
How Loud Is an Airplane Cabin? (Decibel Levels During Flight)
Cabin noise varies by nearly 13 dB between aircraft types measured the same way — and by another 10 dB between taxi and takeoff. Here is the measured data, by aircraft and by flight phase.
How Loud Is a Fire Alarm? (Smoke Detector Decibel Levels)
A smoke alarm's rated loudness and the level that reaches a sleeping child are two different measurements, and the government's own field data shows how far apart they are.
How Loud Is a Car Horn? What Type Approval Actually Requires
Car horns are unusually well regulated and unusually badly reported. The documented figures are approval limits at defined distances, not the numbers you see quoted.
How Loud Is a Stadium Crowd? What the Measurements Actually Show
Record-breaking stadium numbers get quoted constantly. The measurement that actually tells you something is much less famous.
How Loud Is a Snow Blower? Only a Declared Figure Exists
Snow blowers are regulated only by a labelling requirement. No authority publishes a measured level, and we are not going to invent one.
How Loud Is a Garbage Truck? The Compaction Cycle Is the Gap
The truck is only half the noise. The lift, the compactor and the bins produce the part that wakes people, and that part is the least documented.
How Loud Is an Air Conditioner? It Depends Which Unit
Four different machines get called an air conditioner, and only one of them is documented well.
How Loud Is a Train Horn? The Legal Minimum and Maximum
This is one of the rare sounds with a legally defined loudness. US federal rule fixes both a floor and a ceiling, and specifies exactly where the microphone goes.
How Loud Is an Airplane Takeoff? Certified Levels and What They Mean
Takeoff noise is certified per aircraft type, not per event. The same question has three different answers depending on whether you are certifying an airliner, monitoring a neighbourhood, or working on the ramp.
How Loud Are Headphones at Max Volume? It Depends on the Pairing
There is no single maximum headphone level, because the level depends on which phone is driving which headphones — and the spread is nearly 30 dB.
How Loud Is a Restaurant? What a 1,788-Venue Survey Found
One published survey is large enough to say something real about dining rooms — and specific enough to show why a single number is the wrong shape of answer.
How Loud Is Gym Music? The Workout Noise Problem
The measurements are unusually consistent across studies, and the class format matters far more than the gym.
How Loud Is a Generator? Portable & Standby dB Levels
Generator noise figures look comparable and often are not — one manufacturer states outright that there is no industry standard test for it.
How Loud Is a Circular Saw? What NIOSH Measured
Circular saws are one of the few tools with real government measurements behind them — of sound power, for named models, under stated load conditions.
How Loud Is a Pressure Washer? Outdoor Cleaning Noise
For electric machines the declared data is precise and complete. For petrol machines the published record thins out to a warning label, and we say so.
How Loud Is a Dental Drill? Measured 30 cm From the Ear
The dental noise literature measures the clinician, not the patient — and the position it measures from changes what the numbers mean.
How Loud Is a Police Siren? Decibel Levels Explained
Emergency sirens are built to a specification, not a habit. Three different standards define how loud one must be, at 3 metres, on axis — and they disagree by several decibels.
How Loud Is an Air Compressor? Two Regulated Figures
Compressors are unusual: they are one of the few machines with both a legal sound power ceiling and a large field-measurement dataset behind them.
How Loud Is a Clothes Dryer? What Is Actually Declared
For dryers the evidence divides by geography: Europe requires a declared figure, and the United States requires nothing.
How Loud Is a Power Sander? The Measured Spread Is Huge
Sanders are the one power tool where the measured spread between models is so wide that any single figure is meaningless — and the government data shows it.
How Loud Is a Table Saw? Decibel Levels Explained
The number in the manual and the number in a working shop differ by more than ten decibels, and the reason is documented rather than mysterious.
How Loud Is an Angle Grinder? Decibel Levels Explained
Wheel diameter sets the declared figure, and real grinding sets a higher one. Both are documented, and the difference between them is the point.
How Loud Is a Bar? Decibel Levels Explained
The range across venues is so wide that a single figure would be misleading, and the loudest end of it is the least well documented.
How Loud Is a Weed Whacker? It Depends Which Category
String trimmers sit on a regulatory boundary: two similar machines, one with a legal noise ceiling and one with only a declared figure.
How Loud Is a Movie Theater? Decibel Levels Explained
Cinema level is a property of the film, not the building — and the widely quoted 85 dB figure is a calibration reference that has been misread for decades.
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