About The Loudness Scale
Created by Nolan Schleiff
Scroll down to go from the loudest sound air can carry to the quietest place ever measured, a span of about 219 decibels. The big number in the top left is the sound level in decibels; below it is how hard that sound pushes and pulls on the air, in pascals. Each stop says how much more sound energy it carries than the next one, and roughly how much louder it seems to your ear.
Decibels are logarithmic: every 10 dB means ten times the sound energy. The loudest stop on this page carries almost 8 sextillion times the energy of the quietest.
What's Simplified
- Levels are sound pressure levels (dB SPL), measured against 20 micropascals, roughly the faintest sound a young ear can hear. Some figures are A-weighted, which tunes the measurement to human hearing.
- Loudness depends on distance, so each stop says where it's measured. In open air, every doubling of distance takes about 6 dB off.
- Everyday sounds vary a lot from one vacuum cleaner or rainstorm to the next. The values here are typical, not exact.
- Every 10 dB is ten times the energy, but your ear hears it as only about twice as loud. The "times as loud" figures use that rule of thumb, and are only shown where it roughly holds.
- Sound can't be drawn to scale, so every stop is drawn at the same size. The rings around each drawing get bolder the louder the stop.
- Animations are illustrations, not simulations.
Sources
- Reference pressure of 20 µPa: ISO 1683 and standard acoustics references.
- Krakatoa: the Royal Society's report on the 1883 eruption, from pressure readings at the Batavia gasworks.
- Loudest stadium crowd: Guinness World Records (2014).
- Quietest room: Guinness World Records, Orfield Laboratories (2021).
- Hearing-safety limits: NIOSH recommended exposure limit (85 dBA over 8 hours, halved every 3 dB).
- Everyday sounds: typical values published by hearing-health organisations such as the CDC and the American Academy of Audiology.
Get Involved
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A text version of every stop is available for screen readers.
See the other scales on the home page.
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