THE DECIBEL SCALE This is used extensively in engineering and express the ratio of two quantities, such as voltage,

sound level, power, in a logarithmic form. For a power ratio the formula is dB = 10log10
P 1 P2

P2 is sometimes called a reference level and the value of P1 is referred to it. Note: the logarithm is to the base 10, so if the ratio is 10:1 the value in dB will be +10dB, or for a ratio of 100:1 the answer is +20dB. If the dB value is positive then P1 > P2 , if dB comes out negative then P < P2 and for P = P2 the answer is 1 1 0dB. (Other formulae exist in other disciplines but are essentially based on the same idea. For 2 voltages. V1 and V2 , since power is proportional to the square of voltage, the formula becomes:
dB = 20log10 V1 V2

Therefore voltages of one order apart have a ratio of either +20dB or -20dB.) Two important power ratio are 2:1 and 1:2 (i.e.1/2) corresponding to doubling or halving powers. Now the value of log10 2 = 0.301 so work out the value in dB corresponding to these two cases: (reveal) 10log10 2 = +3dB and
1 10log10 = 10 0.301 = 3dB 2

The advantages of the dB scale are as follows: 1) 2) 3) 4) The human ear has a logarithmic response to sound level. To values that vary by more than 1 order or magnitude (i.e. more than 10:1) are hard to show graphically, and the dB scale solves this. If two systems of gains say +10dB and + 15dB are joined in series, without effecting (loading) each other, then the overall gain is simply the sum of the two dB values i.e.+25dB. It is quite easy to work out a dB value without a calculator if you know one or two key values.

From what you know from above work out the value in dB of the power ratio 5:1 (reveal)
5 10log1010 = 10{ log10 10 log10 2} = 10{ 1 0.301} = +7 dB 1 2 10log1010 = 10 { log10 2 log10 10} = 10 { 0.301 1} = 7 dB 10

Now try a ratio of 0.2