ESA 430:

ARCHITECTURAL ACOUSTICS-
SOUND AND LOUDNESS

School of the Built Environment

Background
• The human ear does not interpret sound in
terms of absoluteness but with reference to a
base (threshold of audibility)
• It will tell that one sound is louder than the
other not the actual level of the sound
• Thus, it interprets sound in terms of loudness
The Phon scale
• Sounds at different dB levels will be
perceived to be of the same loudness by the
ear
• This is because the subjective interpretation
of the loudness of a sound varies with
frequency.
• The ear has an in built mechanism for self
preservation which protects the ear from
damage when exposed to high frequency
sounds
The Phon scale
• This is represented in the form of Equal
Loudness Contours
• All the sounds on one contour are perceived
to be of the same Loudness by the ear
• This is despite the fact that they are of
different Sound Pressure Levels (SPL) and
therefore dBs
The Phon Scale
The Phon Scale
The Phon Scale
• It can be seen from the Phon Scale that:
– The human ear is more sensitive to high frequency
sounds than it is to low frequency sounds
– It takes more sound pressure to produce 60phons
response at lower frequencies than it does at
higher frequencies
– For example: At 20Hz it takes 80dbs to produce 20
phons loudness response whereas at 2000Hz it
takes only 20dbs to produce the same response
• The ear will interpret these two sounds as
being of the same level of loudness
The Phon Scale
• It can be seen from the Phon Scale that:
– The db scale and the phon scale are different
– This means - what the ear will interpret as the
loudness is different from what the db scale will
show as the level of sound
– However, the db scale and the phon scale meet
at 1000Hz
– At this frequency what the ear perceives to
loudness is the same as what the db scale will
show as the level of sound
The dBA Scale
• It can be seen from the Phon Scale that:
– Loudness cannot be measured by an instrument
– However, electronics instruments have been
developed that use a weighting in the
measurement of the SPL to take into account the
varied sensitivity of the human ear across the
frequency spectrum
– Thus the ‘A’ weighted db scale is used to produce
the dbA scale which has a better interpretation of
the sound similar to the way the human ear
would
The dBA scale
Effects of Noise
• 65 dBA: Unwanted sounds may cause
annoyance, it does not have physiological
effects
• 90 dBA: Many years of exposure to this level of
sound will cause permanent damage
• 100 dBA: Prolonged exposure will cause
irreparable damage
• 120 dBA: Causes pain
• 150 dBA: Causes instantaneous hearing loss