Hearing becomes uncomfortable if the sound pressure level is above 110 decibels (threshold of discomfort), and it becomes painful above 130 decibels (threshold of pain).
Decibel Level
Sounds at or below 70 dBA are generally considered safe. Any sound at or above 85 dBA is more likely to damage your hearing over time. Researchers have found that people who are exposed over long periods of time to noise levels at 85 dBA or higher are at a much greater risk for hearing loss.
By 100 decibels, the noise exposure limit drops to 15 minutes, and at 10 decibels more (110 dB), the risk exposure time plummets to just one minute. Exposure to sound levels for longer than that could result in permanent hearing loss.
80 decibels is fairly loud. It's equivalent to the noise of a busy downtown street. Being loud, it is a noise level that may harm your hearing if you are exposed to it for longer periods (more than 8-10 hours/day). There's no better way to understand how loud 80 dB is than to take examples from everyday life.
A 100 dB sound like that of a power tool or a car horn is 100,000 times louder than a sound that is 50 decibels like an average suburban home or a quiet room. We, humans, will perceive this difference as 32 times louder.
How loud is a gunshot? Decibel levels for firearms average between 140 and 165 dB.
A nuclear bomb.
Decibel meters set 250 feet away from test sites peaked at 210 decibels. The sound alone is enough to kill a human being, so if the bomb doesn't kill you, the noise will. Fun fact!
Noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing. Loud noise above 120 dB can cause immediate harm to your ears.
Sounds above 150 dB have the potential of causing life-threatening issues. Sounds between 170-200 dB are so intense that they can cause lethal issues like pulmonary embolisms, pulmonary contusions, or even burst lungs.
First 1000 dB is a physical impossibility, anything over 150dB would burst your eardrums, anything over 194dB is no longer sound and anything over 200dB is fatal.
German researcher Jurgen Altmann showed that a blast of 210 decibels or more affects the inner organs — the lungs — and could cause internal injury that could lead to death.
But what about the loudest sound ever heard? On the morning of 27 August 1883, on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa, a volcanic eruption produced what scientists believe to be the loudest sound produced on the surface of the planet, estimated at 310 decibels (dB).
A sperm whale's click is 200 decibels, the unit used to measure the intensity of a sound, said Jennifer Miksis-Olds, associate professor of acoustics at Penn State.
Loud appliances such as a vacuum cleaner or power tools could exceed 80 dB. Human screams can be quite loud, possibly exceeding 100 dB (as of March 2019, the world record is 129 dB!) —but you probably want to avoid that because screams that loud can hurt your ears!
Average Decibel Level of Human Speech
A whisper is between 20-30 dB. On the other hand, a human scream can reach decibel levels between 80 and 125 dB.
The higher the level of sound and longer the duration, the greater the risk of hearing loss. For example, you can safely listen to a sound level of 80dB for up to 40 hours a week. If the sound level is 90dB, the safe listening time reduces to four hours per week.
At 194 dB, the energy in the sound waves starts distorting and they create a complete vacuum between themselves. The sound is no longer moving through the air, but is in fact pushing the air along with it, forming a pressurized wall of moving air.
Hailey et al.) For the first time in history, earthlings can hear what a black hole sounds like: a low-pitched groaning, as if a very creaky heavy door was being opened again and again.
Sounds above 90 dB can lead to chronic hearing damage if people are exposed to them every day or all the time. Hearing becomes uncomfortable if the sound pressure level is above 110 decibels (threshold of discomfort), and it becomes painful above 130 decibels (threshold of pain).
120 – 140 decibels: Such as, a rock concert, auto racing, or a hammer pounding a nail. 125 – 155 decibels: Like, firecrackers or fireworks, or a jet engine. 170 – 190 decibels: For example, a shot gun blast or a rocket lift off.
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Headphones and earbuds can reach as loud as 100 dB or more, so a safe level is 50 to 60 percent of the maximum volume. This helps protect our hearing and allows us to listen to our favorite music for longer.
As a basic guide, venues with sound limiters set at 95 decibels or preferably higher are pretty live music-friendly and won't hamper a live wedding band or entertainer too much. For example, our rock and indie wedding band League of Gentlemen (above) perform within 95 decibels or higher all the time.
Tsar Bomba (224dB)
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs of 1945 destroyed cities in an instant – but the Tsar bomb was 3,300 times stronger than that and is considered the strongest sound every produced by mankind, with the most reliable figure suggesting it clocked at 224dB.
There is at least some testing footage from the era that features sound. It is jarring to hear. The boom is more like a shotgun than a thunderclap, and it's followed by a sustained roar. Here's one example, from a March 1953 test at Yucca Flat, the nuclear test site in the Nevada desert.
DeForest pegs the sun's din on Earth at around 100 decibels, a bit quieter than the speakers at a rock concert. That's during the day, of course. At night, as we turn away from the sun, the roar would fade.