Patrice O'Neal

Not everybody should be laughing at everything at the same time. That's not even natural. My thing is to feel natural, because I don't want to feel like I could just make people laugh at every single joke, every single time, with the same decibel level.

American Comedian

Tracy K. Smith

My hope is to create spaces where people of all stripes can come together and speak at a lower decibel level. We make more sense that way. We sound more like our real selves that way.

American Poet

John J. McLaughlin

Despite the occasional high decibel level, 'The Group' is not a shout fest. I don't simply want panelists with opposing opinions trying to out-shout one another.

American Journalist

Robin Hayes

Drone manufacturers have yet to create a drone capable of delivering packages while operating at a decibel level that isn't disruptive to communities.

American Politician

Joe Trohman

I have an amp that doesn't have a master volume. It sounds awesome, but we just can't get an appropriate decibel level out of it.

American Musician

Steven Price

I worry about technical details - did I mix the cello half a decibel too high? Things like that.

Musician

Decibels quantify sound volume, with higher values indicating louder sounds.

Volume Measurement

Pain threshold begins at around 120 decibels for humans, so anything above can be harmful.

Threshold of Pain

Decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, so each 10-decibel increase represents a tenfold increase in intensity.

Logarithmic Scale

In electronics, decibels measure signal power or intensity, not just sound.

Electronics Usage

In networking, decibels indicate the strength of a wireless signal.

Networking Context

Decibels can also represent signal loss, a negative value means reduction in strength.

Signal Loss Example

 Music is entirely different. When you hear music, if it doesn't sound good, what's the point? There's really very little point in listening to music when it doesn't sound good to you. The acoustics of music are much harder than those of language. And you can see on this figure, that the frequency range and the decibel range, the dynamic range of music

Charles Limb: Building...

 It's amazing. But what have the microphones picked up? The decibel waveform show the sound being generated by the birds in flight.