Download an SPL meter app onto your phone.

1. Find the loudness quotients for the following:

1. Street noise

2. Empty room

3. Hands clapping

4. Comfortable loudness for music in your bedroom

5. If you’re at a bar, gig, party, work environment etc. find out how loud it is.

2. Answer the following:

1. What exposure time is permissible for a) 85dB b) 91dB c) 103dB

2. In Australia, what profession has the highest incidence of hearing loss?

3. Define what Temporary Threshold Shift means and put in your weekly reflection.

Activity 1

Observe the psychoacoustic phenomena and note your responses.

Activity 2

Open this Pro Tools session and unmute the groups.

Activity 3

Question: In your groups, can you work out the following:

1. In dB, how loud is a whisper measured at 630μPa?

2. By how many dBs does a sound increase when the intensity doubles?

3. Can you work out the same measurement but for Pascals?

Find a resource online that supports your findings and add to your LJ for this week. Ensure to write this in a sentence with an in-text citation and suitable reference.

Activity 4

Find the information for the SPL meter.

Activity 3

In your groups, can you work out the following:

1. In dB, how loud is a whisper measured at 630μPa?

2. By how many dBs does a sound increase when the intensity doubles?

3. Can you work out the same measurement but for Pascals?

Find a resource online that supports your findings and add to your LJ for this week. Ensure to write this in a sentence with an in-text citation and suitable reference.

Activity 4

Find the information for the SPL meter.

Get together in your groups and begin to wrangle the data for your group report.

1. In pairs, investigate ambient noise levels in a variety of locations. Choose two locations (four total). Visit each location to record and measure sound levels. Include the following in your Learning Journal:

   • one minute of ambient sound recording and measurement per location;

   • the average and peak dB SPL levels observed and the SPL meter settings used (e.g. A or C weighting, fast or slow response etc);

   • a photograph of each recorded place.

2. Consider your measurement findings and discuss the following:

   • the sounds that were recorded in each environment (e.g. air con, birds, traffic, music etc);

   • the properties of each environment (materials, reflective, absorptive, inside, outside, size etc) 

   • could the locations could be suitable as a recording space and why?

   • were any of the locations loud enough that prolonged exposure could cause hearing damage? If so, how long you could safely be exposed to that decibel level?

   • how do the weightings used in the sound measurements relate to human hearing, and why the weighting was selected for each location,