Realistic sound level meter

A neat little device for measuring sound levels, ranging from quiet to dangerously loud. I use it to measure the normal listening level of my headphones, and it turns out I'm playing them just below the OSHA guidelines for hearing protection (85 dB).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• realistic
• radio
• shack
• sound
• presure
• level
• meter
• loudness
• volume
• sounds
• osha
• hearing
• protection
• db
• dbs
• decibels
• dba
• dbc
• weighting

[JADJuanan]

I'm interested in getting exactly that one. Where did you buy it?

[vwestlife]

@JADJuanan I got it at a thrift store.

[09AngelofDeth]

I got a question for you, I just bout a Skull Candy headset, how would I measure the volume on the headset, is half way on the ipod too loud for maybe about %60 of the volume too lout?? Can you help me?

[vwestlife]

Supposedly an iPod playing at full blast through the original Apple earbuds puts out 115 dB, which is way too loud and will cause permanent hearing damage. If your ears are ringing afterwards, you were playing it too loud. Be sure to enable the "Sound Check" feature so that every song plays at the same volume, and set the iPod to a reasonable loudness when you first start playing it. Your ears adjust to a certain loudness over time, so don't turn it up later, just keep it at the same level.

[DarkoAqua]

[Part 2] I use a peace of sponge with a hole in center to cover the surrounding tube of a measuring microphone and make a physical contact with entire headphone's speaker. Even with A-weighting method which cuts of healty amount of low frequency response, not really appropriate with 'bassy' and specially large phones in my opinion, you should get around +6...+10 dB higher readout, which is closer to reality. Just give it a try.

[DarkoAqua]

[Part 1] Headphone level testing is little different from standard speaker testing. I discovered that in order to fully capture the sound, particularly low frequency spectrum, you need to simulate exact contact of the headphones with the listener's head to capture all sound pressure + vibrations, otherwise you will get too low (optimistic) values of generated SPL.

[jastee]

Just picked up one of these babies for twenty bucks at a pawn shop

I have taken it apart twice already

These things are tanks

Several instructors of mine use these old radioshack dinosaurs to calibrate their spankin new gear.

The new ones now are generally a pain to work with in my experience.

Radioshack got this one right back thenGreat vid!!!

[JLTALEX]

I inherited a meter just like this. I just tested how loud I listen to music on my headphones and it's hovering around 70db. It's no wonder loud commercials bother me when I'm watching TV! Thanks for the video!

[bluenazz]

...and the crickets were weren't even shouting (;>

[NEUDude]

We have a radio shack battery tester that we have had as long as I can remember. I think it's from the late 70s or the early 80s, it has a VU-like meter and a knob and switch, and it still works to this day, and we use it.