If a person talking to you at 65 dB stands 3 feet in front of you, you’ll hear them at 59 dB when you stand 6 feet away and 53 dB when you’re 12 feet apart. According to the inverse square law of acoustics, sound levels drop by 6 decibels with every doubling of the distance from a source. Image Credit: Petra, Pixabayĭistance is essential when gauging the sound intensity of a source because noises become less intense as you move away. We’ll perceive a buzzing mosquito at 20 dB as being twice as loud as 10-dB breathing, while a 30-dB whisper is four times the noise level, and rainfall at 50 dB is 16 times louder. The difference between 10 dB and 20 dB is similar to the change from 30 dB to 40 dB. The perceived volume also follows a logarithmic rule.

A 65-decibel conversation between two people may be 10 times more intense than a 55-decibel dishwasher, but we’ll only perceive it as twice as loud. When the sound pressure (decibels) increases tenfold, we perceive it as only two times louder. The concept of the sound intensity change might be confusing if a conversation doesn’t seem like it’s ten times louder than a running appliance. At 65 decibels, a typical chat is ten times louder than a 55-decibel dishwasher and 100 times louder than a 45-decibel refrigerator. For instance, 10 dB is ten times louder than 0 dB, 20 dB is 100 times noisier, and 30 dB is 1,000 times louder. Every 10-decibel difference in intensity equals a ten-fold change. Perceived sound is crucial because it doesn’t reflect the sound intensity as we measure it in decibels.ĭecibel levels are logarithmic. From a sound perception standpoint, 65 decibels is about twice as loud as a modern dishwasher. It’s similar to a business office or the noise inside a running car. A conversation about 3 feet apart between two people registers at roughly 65 decibels.

Decibel rate chart