What are decibels?
Decibels are units so common for anything related to sound or music. By themselves, they have very little meaning—the suffixes give it context—wait, what?
Decibels are units so common for anything related to sound or music. By themselves, they have very little meaning—the suffixes give it context—wait, what?
For sure, they’re attractive—there, we said it! They usually come in huge packs of 4 panels, or 8, or more, and have delightful—or classy—color schemes; don’t even mention the cool protruding shapes they come in.
As humans, we perceive sound in a very specific way in our hearing range (roughly 20Hz–20,000Hz). Devices, however, have the option to make register sound either very objectively, or rather subjectively—sometimes resulting in unwanted confusion or even intended deceit.
To some, the distinction between absorbing sound and stopping sound is entirely common-sense and intuitive. But to the majority of the people (generally, musicians) out there, it’s not an obvious line that separates the two concepts, so let’s clear a few things up!
Eigentones, standing waves, resonant eigenfrequencies, room modes. They go by many names but they all come down to the same concept: frequencies that reinforce themselves within an enclosed environment because their wavelength is an exact multiple of one—or more—of the enclosure’s dimensions.