GrimSurfer
Major Contributor
- Joined
- May 25, 2019
- Messages
- 1,238
- Likes
- 1,484
According to this page it's just A-weighting, slow integration. Nothing fancy, it's just the total noise level with a basic perceptual weighting, just like you'd see on a spec sheet for example. Which makes sense, since that will give the highest number anyway (larger, by definition, than any tone in the signal), and when you're dealing with safety standards you want to err on the safe side. Using that method will likely also give you around 30 dBA in a quiet room, I'd assume.
Exactly.
My listening space (living room, quiet suburban street, leafy neighbourhood, interior walls treated with Roxul Safe 'n Sound, R16 outer walls and R24 ceiling, medium weight curtains covering double pane argon-filled windows, a sealed fireplace, and an insulated and sealed door) measures 30 dB in the evening.
It's 29 dB in the winter with 3-6 feet/1-2 M of snow on the ground and roof (snow being a really good attenuator) outside. That's without the HVAC running.
If I tried really, really hard I might be able to knock this down by 1-2 dB.
So 10 dB for a normal residential space is simply absurd. Even typing it stretches the imagination.