[LAD] twice as loud

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 12:13 +0200, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 11:34:43AM +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
> 
> > > > We could think about what makes judging twice the
> > > > loudness more difficult and maybe find a relation to another phenomenon
> > > > this way. The limits of hearing apply to everything, but what about
> > > > factors like the time between two sounds or the length of the sounds?
> > > 
> > > All of these affect both masking and loudness.
> > 
> > Yep, but maybe some of the other possible factors match one phenomenon
> > but not the other.
> 
> Indeed. As I said, this relation between 'loudness' and masking
> is pure conjecture, I have no hard arguments pro.
> 
> > May I ask why you used 10*log(2/1) in your two person example?
> 
> You mean why power and not amplitude ? Two persons talking would
> produce twice the power, since the signals are not correlated.
> So if our idea of 'twice as loud' would be determined by such
> experiences (but it clearly isn't), it would refer to power.
> 
> > Do nearfield effects matter?
> 
> Probably yes, but don't ask me how !
> 
> Joern's remark that the phrase 'twice as loud' doesn't make
> sense is to the point. We only accept it because it is 'well-
> formed' at the language level. But there is no a priori 
> numerical value for loudness (indeed we are trying to find
> one !), so 'doubling' it is in fact undefined.
> 
> Ciao,
> 

If parents want their children to play the music half as loud, the
parents usually have a perfect idea of what half as loud is, it quiet
often differs to the idea of the children.