Hearing Rune

Background

When measuring a sound's volume, you're actually measuring the sound pressure level. This unit of measurement is called decibels. All sounds we perceive consist of air pressure oscillations that hit our ear drums. Only once they are transferred to our brain, are they converted into information. Depending on the energy with which the oscillations – meaning the sound waves – hit our ear drums, we perceive them as loud or quiet. The more energy a sound has the louder we perceive it. To measure volume we use the unit of decibels – abbreviated to dB.

The lowest perceivable volume, meaning the quietest sound humans can hear, is 0 decibels. Volumes of approximately 50 dB are pleasant for us, while the discomfort threshold starts at around 100 dB. Painful sound levels go from 120 dB on up. What’s important to know is that 100 dB are not twice as loud as 50 dB. Perception of volume is always subjective and depends on one’s own hearing but generally speaking, an increase of 10 dB roughly corresponds to the perceived volume doubling in intensity. Thus, 60 dB are perceived as twice as loud as 50 dB.

Therefore, in noisy environments it is very important to protect one’s hearing to tampen dB levels from a dangerous level to a safe level. Various hearing protection products such as ear plugs for music lovers only filter out disrupting, damaging frequencies, however. Perceptually, every 10 dB increase sounds twice as loud.

Debical Table

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POWer	dB	Descriptive
10	10
20	20
30	30
40	40	Mild
50	50	Moderate
60	60	Moderately Severe
70	70
80	80	Severe Hearing Loss
90	90
100	100	Profound Hearing Loss

Break [P]

Break hearing, reduces a person's ability to hear. The dB on any sound the victim hears will be reduced by the amount in the chart above.

Strengthen [T]

Strength hearing increases a person's ability to hear. The dB on any sound the victim hears will be increased by the amount in the chart above.