How to measure how loud a speaker is
Music adds life to a social event. There are so many Bluetooth speakers on the market to choose from. The issue of wattage confuses many shoppers. Does wattage affect the loudness and clarity of a speaker? Should you go for a high watt rating and overlook the audio quality of the speaker? How many watts make a good speaker?
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Content:
- Understanding Frequency Response - Why it Matters
- How Automatic Room Correction Can Help (and Hurt) Your Sound System
- THE RELATIONSHIP OF VOLTAGE, LOUDNESS, POWER AND DECIBELS
- Understanding Loud Speaker Data
- Testing Loudspeakers: Which Measurements Matter, Part 1
- Speaker Sensitivity Explained
- Tune your Sonos speakers with Trueplay
- Speaker Power and Distance
- Speaker Watts, Sound Quality, and Loudness Explained
Understanding Frequency Response - Why it Matters
Decibels dB are a unit for measuring sound. Since sound reproduction is critical for the home theater experience, it's important to understand the meaning of decibels when it comes to music. Decibels are also used to measure the power of electrical signals. This article pertains to the measurement of sound. A decibel, designated by the letters dB, is a logarithmic scale of loudness. Our ears detect changes in volume in a non-linear fashion.
Sound loudness—which is not necessarily the same thing as volume—is determined by a variety of factors. These include the amount of air that reaches the ear and the distance between our ears and a sound source. The decibel scale was created to quantify how loud sounds are. A difference of 1 dB is perceived as a minimum change in volume. A difference of 3 dB is a moderate change, and a difference of 10 dB is perceived by the listener as a doubling of volume.
The threshold of hearing is 0 dB. Here are some examples of common sounds and where they typically fall on the decibel scale:. For amplifiers , decibels are a measurement of how much power it takes to produce a specific sound output level. For one amplifier or receiver to be twice as loud as another, you need 10 times more wattage output, so a receiver with WPC is capable of twice the volume level of a 10 WPC amp. Decibels are also used in relation to the sound output of loudspeakers and subwoofers at specific frequencies and volume levels.
A speaker may have the ability to output a frequency range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but at frequencies lower than 80 Hz, the sound output level volume may be -3 dB less. This is because more power output is required at lower frequencies to produce the same volume level. The dB scale is applied to the sound level output capability of a specific speaker when fed a tone carried by one watt of power.
A speaker that can produce 90 dB or higher sound output when fed a one-watt audio signal is considered to have good speaker sensitivity. For video projectors, the decibel scale is used to measure how much sound is produced by the cooling fan. A video projector with a fan noise rating of 20 dB or less is considered very quiet. One way that decibels can be measured is with a portable sound meter. There are also sound meter apps that work with the microphone in a typical smartphone.
Most home theater receivers have built-in test tone generators that you can use to determine the generated decibel level for each speaker. When all your speakers register the same decibel level at a given volume level, your sound listening experience will be balanced. A microphone is provided that plugs into the front of the receiver. The receiver sends out test tones to each speaker, which are picked up by the microphone and sent back to the receiver.
The receiver then determines how many speakers there are, the distance of each speaker from the listening position, and the size of each speaker. Using that information, it calculates the optimum speaker level relationship between the speakers and subwoofer along with the best crossover point between the speakers and the subwoofer.
Robert Silva. Robert Silva has extensive experience in consumer electronics and home theater product sales and sales supervision; he has written about audio, video, and home theater topics since Robert has articles published on HBO. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn.
Updated on August 19, Tweet Share Email. In This Article. What Is a Decibel? The Decibel Scale. How the Scale Is Applied. How to Measure Decibels. Measuring Without a Meter. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Email Address Sign up There was an error.
Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Tell us why! More from Lifewire. Understanding Amplifier Power Output Specifications. The 5 Best Surround Sound Speakers of Home Theater Receiver Connections Explained.
How Automatic Room Correction Can Help (and Hurt) Your Sound System
This app turns your iOS device into a professional sound level meter, detects halmful environmental noises, and helps protect your hearing and health. It turns your iOS device into a professional sound level meter, precisely measures the sound pressure level SPL all around you. This extremely useful and beautiful tool will not only be a great tool for many uses but also bring you a lot of fun. Have you wondered how quiet is your room or how loud is a rock concert or sport event? The precision is matching with real SPL devices - Apple Watch support: see noise level right from your wrist - Health App integration: export noise levels directly into Health app. Those are very useful for frequency analysis and musical tests.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF VOLTAGE, LOUDNESS, POWER AND DECIBELS
Last Updated: March 13, References. To create this article, 26 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed , times. Learn more In common usage, decibels are usually a way to measure the volume loudness of a sound. Decibels are a base 10 logarithmic unit, which means that increasing a sound by 10 decibels results in a sound that is twice as loud as the "base" sound.
Understanding Loud Speaker Data
Speaker sensitivity is a measure of how efficiently a speaker converts amplifier power to acoustic energy. In other words, it tells us how loud the volume will be for power output from the amplifier. With a speaker, we are talking about the acoustic output, or the volume, resulting from a given amount of power. Measuring the decibel dB output of a speaker when applying 1 watt of power provides the degree of sensitivity.
Testing Loudspeakers: Which Measurements Matter, Part 1
Even if you have some basic understanding of these specifications, you might get confused by different measurement methods and different units. One of the characteristics that can be really tricky is speaker sensitivity and there are numerous reasons for that — some manufacturers call it efficiency sensitivity and efficiency are not the same things , some manufacturers use dB at 1m per 1W, others use dB at 1m per 2. The main problem with sensitivity is that there is no industry standard when it comes to measuring and unit of measurement that would be the same for all the manufacturers. In this article, we will be focusing on all the important things related to sensitivity ratings. We will try to clarify all the ambiguities, make a difference between sensitivity and efficiency, explain different measurement methods and measurement units, and offer you a few pieces of advice on how to compare sensitivity ratings.
Speaker Sensitivity Explained
What are they all? How are they related to loudness, to phons and to sones? And how loud is loud? This page describes and compares them all and gives sound file examples. A related page allows you to measure your hearing response and to compare with standard hearing curves. This is a background page to the multimedia chapters Sound and Quantifying Sound.
Tune your Sonos speakers with Trueplay
Your local drive-in DJ, the next-door neighbour or even your best friend bragging about their new sound system might sound familiar to you. Sure, a 1, Watt speaker is louder than a Watt model but definitely not times as loud. As a matter of fact, sometimes a 1, Watt speaker can produce more volume than a 1, Watt one. This blog is written to separate the facts from fiction and show you how it really works when it comes to the power capacity of speakers and amplifiers.
Speaker Power and Distance
RELATED VIDEO: How to Calculate dB SPL for a PA Speaker - How Loud Can Your Speakers Go?Audio Analyzer products are signal analyzing equipments which are able to measure all testing items at the same time. This might result in ear damage and decrease conformity of quality due to the involvement of the personal objective in determination of sound quality. SG : Measure 2CH speaker at the same time. Testing System Compositio. Vista XP.
Speaker Watts, Sound Quality, and Loudness Explained
What a boring title! On the contrary, I think you will find the information contained herein to be both enlightening maybe even surprising and certainly valuable. This paper will help you to better understand how the major component parts of your stereo system interact. In particular, we will explore the elusive relationship between speaker output volume and amplifier output power. Loudness, to a great degree, is subjective. What is loud to one person is not to another.
Indisputably, the best way to test a speaker before you buy one is to listen to the sound it produces. But then this is not always possible, particularly in this age of online shopping and even if you plan to buy one from a brick and mortar retailer - many don't have demo units and can refuse to unpack a sealed package until the purchase is completed. It is where the speaker specifications come to the rescue.
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