Sound Comparison Tables

The decibel (dB) table below compares some common sounds and shows how they rank in potential harm to hearing. 70 dB is the point at which noise begins to harm hearing (EPA). To the ear, each 10 dB increase seems twice as loud.

Sound Levels and Human Response
Common sounds	Noise Level dB (A) (Decibels) ("A Weighting")	Effect
Rocket launching pad (no ear protection)	180	Irreversible hearing loss
Carrier deck jet operation Air raid siren	140	Painfully loud
Thunderclap	130
Jet takeoff (200 ft) Auto horn (3 ft)	120	Maximum vocal effort
Pile driver Rock concert Home Shop Tools 65-110 dB	110	Extremely loud
Garbage truck Firecrackers Gas Lawn Mower at 3 feet Chain Saw 105-115 dB	100	Very loud
Heavy truck (50 ft) City traffic Motorcycle 80-110 dB	90	Very annoying Hearing damage (8 Hrs)
Alarm clock (2 ft) Hair dryer Food Blender at 3 feet Gas Lawn Mower at 100 feet	80	Annoying
Noisy restaurant Freeway traffic Business office Vacuum Cleaner 60-85 dB	70	Telephone use difficult
Air conditioning unit Conversational speech Large business office Cloths dryer 50-70dB	60	Intrusive
Light auto traffic (100 ft) Dishwasher in next room	50	Quiet
Living room Bedroom at night Quiet office Bird calls - 44 dB	40
Library Soft whisper (15 ft) Quiet Rural nighttime	30	Very quiet
Broadcasting studio	20
	10	Just audible
	0	Hearing begins

Construction Equipment
Front-end Loader	85
Dozer	80
Jackhammer	88
Saw (concrete cutting)	83
Semi Dump Truck	80
Concrete truck/mixer	85
Generator	78
Air Compressor	81

Figure 2, from an EPA report, "Information on Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety," (EPA/ONAC 550/9-74-004, March, 1974). shows a ten-minute time history of outdoor sound measured on a front lawn at a quiet suburban location on a typical, otherwise uneventful, afternoon. The maximum sound level, 73 dB(A), occurs instantaneously when a sports car passes on the nearby street. Often, the "noise floor" or background sound of an area is expressed as the sound level exceeded 90 percent of the time, symbolized as the L90. In Figure 2, the L90 is approximately 44 dB(A); that is, the ambient sound level exceeds 44 dB(A) for about 90 percent of the time interval depicted. In other words, the background sound level is about as quiet as it gets at a particular location. The one percentile sound level, L1, is generally taken to be representative of typically intrusive, high sound levels observed during a time interval. (one percent of the 10 minute interval in Figure 2 is six seconds).