Decibel Levels

[JIMRPT@AOL.COM]

Kevin wrote:
<<"I was under the impression
that volume and loudness are not necessarily the same thing.">>

Del wrote:
<<"The question of volume vs. loudness brings up a whole other issue. Are we
talking about absolute acoustic power as measured by Ron's new toy? Or
power/loudness as perceived by our ears? If the latter, then we have to
consider how our ears detect sound and we have to factor in the shape of the
sound envelope and the harmonic structure of that sound envelope.">>

and then Ed wrote:
<<" Can we say that the brassy piano is louder and the softer piano 
more powerful?">>

The terms we all tend to use more or less interchangably really all address 
different parts of the same sounds...don't they?
Volume.....loudness......power....projection, these all have to do with the 
capacity of producing/transmitting sound.  The qualities of sound 
Brassy...mellow....tinny...brash......thin......full....etc., can all be part 
of our vocabulary that intermixes with the first four but are not a 
fudemental requirement for any of them.........OK , buy that?   In other 
words we can have a "Brassy" sound that is loud and projected but "brassy" is 
not needed for sound to be loud or projected since all the other qualities 
may also be projected.

'Volume' has to do with the 'loudness' of a sound but 'loudness' also deals 
with the "intensity"......said another way....... A piano may have lots of 
"volume" but not be "loud" in that despite any "volume" it may have, it has 
no ....intensity.... and "intensity" is a requirement for being 'loud'.  So 
they are nearly the same but yet quite different.

"Power" and "projection" are parts of the same also....... yet they are also 
totally different. A piano can be 'powerful' yet not 'project' worth a 
flip....in other words while an piano may be balanced enough to pull 
everything possible out of any given scale/soundboard/bridge/hammer 
configuration and fill the area around the pianist with very rich 
sound...this sound may end 10 feet from the piano.  A piano can have 
marvelous 'projection' and have a thin nasaly tone or a rich full tone.  Now 
in order for the "projection" to be most useful
there has to be "power" available in the piano to have good tonal 'presence' 
'projected'.

How to corner these equal but desparate thingees?   Well maybe we could say 
that "volume" comes from all factors...."loudness" comes from 
hammers/scale....power comes from a balanced soundboard/bridge/scale 
system.......and "projection" depends primarily on soundboard/bridge/rim 
design.

 As Del has said.... none of these four are dependent on any particular size 
as much as they are on good design and material selection..........

My view, but I've been wrong before.  :-)
Jim Bryant (FL)