"Ralph Mowery" wrote:
"gregz" wrote in message
...
micky wrote:
Someone gave me these orange foam plugs. They seem to cut 12-15 dB, or cut
down the sound less than 1/2 . Ok for cutting the lawn, but hardly enough
to eliminate sounds. Open cell foam, so you don't screw up.

If they cut the sound by 12 to 25 dB that is about 10 to 300 times. 3 dB
will cut the sound in half.
the dB is a log scale.



No. 3dB cuts sound less than 1/2 . DB is power.
It takes 10dB increase to make sound twice as loud, which actually converts
to about 3 times the intensity expressed in volts , because thats how the
ear responds. It's not all that simple, because of various levels and
frequency, thus the Fletcher monson curves.

Greg