Whistle Volume - utterly unscientific study

[Tyghress]

Curiosity and a few spare minutes finally got this Cat. . .
Tyghre wanted to measure the decibel volume of my primary whistles as a function of his tolerance of them being played approximately 3 feet from his ear.

Twas NOT in any fashion double blind, took a whole heck of a lot of personal judgement, didn't involve with a tuner, just a cheapy decibel meter, and has not been repeated in any fashion.

We tested two 'quiet' whistles (Busman and Elfsong) and four 'loud' whistles (Copeland, Sweetheart old, Sweetheart new, and Abell).

From a distance of 3 feet, I played D, A, mid D and high B. I played the note for as long as I could hold my breath, and paying close attention to getting a single, pleasing note without worrying if it was in tune or not. In all instances of course the volume increased with the pitch, though some whistles had a greater range of volume than others

I won't give you the numbers until I've done a lot more research, but one conclusion became weirdly apparent. "Loud" is VERY subjective and in this instance has NO bearing on decibels. Really.

The whistles we perceived as loud were the ones that we both agreed were very pure in sound (another subjective). To our utter astonishment, the two "quiet" whistles actually had measurably greater decibel output.

Make of it what you will. I'd be VERY VERY interested in getting data from others and comparing it with mine.

[Guthrum]

I may only be showing my ignorance here. But, assuming the whistles that had higher actual decibel measurements were more chiffy whistles, there may be sounds not audible to human ears made by the chiffiness or some other factor causing the actual reading to be higher. I'm probably wrong. (Let's all point and Guthrum and laugh children.) But since bass sounds will carry further with less decibel drop than higher frequencies, is it possible that what the meter was reading was (for lack of a better word) chiffiness?

[Easily_Deluded_Fool]

2nd octave B - chieftain sop' D - 200 yards = no problem

[Ridseard]

I've compared the Burke Wide Bore Brass D (old style) and the Al Pro Narrow Bore D. The dB output of the WBB is slightly greater than that of the Al Pro, but the Al Pro really sounds louder than the WBB. The Al Pro also has the "purest" tone.

[McHaffie]

Uh oh... here comes a HAM radio operator...

Yup.. it boils down to frequency / purity vs. actual decibles / chiffy

The frequency / purity of a tone or signal is going to "go farther" OR "sound louder" than a softer or diffused tone or signal.

Works the same for the human ear as it does for a radio receiver. Clear transmission at low power will reach out to the same radio tower at the same distance as a high power signal with a ton of distortion or intermod. Same premise. (that's not the same as making a comparisson to a good / bad whistle, it's just a comparison in decibels which would relate to pure / mellow / chiffy whistles, etc.)

Confused? Good.

Take care,
John

[Loren]

Jessie and I were at a session one time, and I was amazed at how well her "quiet" Abell cut through and carried. Earlier in the day I had the chance to play her Abell D and compare it side by side with my own in a quiet room. When I played Jessie's Abell I was surprised at how quiet it seemed, certainly lower in volume than my own, which I consider to be a sort of "medium" volume whistle - one of those whistles that you can just barely hear well enough yourself when you are playing in a session. So anyway, when we got to the session and she pulled out her Abell to join in on a tune, I was thinking "Well, nobody is going to be able to hear her, perhaps I should offer her my whistle instead." However, knowing Jessie, I thought better of that idea - I didn't want to wear my beer By that I mean Jessie loves her Abell and thinks it's even better than mine (Ha!), so I knew she'd not take kindly to my proposal.

So in the end she whipped out her quiet little Abell, joined in (she plays well), and I ended up thinking that anything louder than her "quiet little" Abell would have been too loud because the thing projected and cut so well.

I'm still surprised sometimes by the difference between perceived volume and projection........Do we have a Acoustical Engineer who can help us undertand this better?

Loren

[AngeloMeola]

I did some volume measurements a while back using a dosimeter to average the sound level while playing a tune. The perceived volume and the measured volume will differ based on how well the meter mimics the sound response of the ear.

Some meters have both an "A" and a "C" setting. The A attempts to imitate the way the ear works by responding less at low and high ends of the sound spectrum. If you have a very low frequency noise, you will get a low reading even though there is enough energy you can feel the vibration. The C has a flatter response. For industrial noise control, the "A" is required by regulation.

I once measured the road noise in my car and it was less than 70 decibels even though it was loud enough to drown out the radio. 70 decibels is about the level of a moderately loud office. The noise was all in the low frequencies that are discounted by the A scale.

[Thomas-Hastay]

Ty, I think the operative word here is "Acoustic Energy"

Each soundwave is a wave of pressurized air followed by a wave of rarified air, like the peak and valley of an Ocean wave before the next peak. A low frequency audio wave has much more energy than a high frequency audio wave. This is more evident at a distance. The low frequency soundwave will travel farther than the high frequency because it has more energy to expend.

Theobald Boehm conducted this same experiment and our modern flute is the result. He wished to produce a flute with more power and acoustic volume(loudness). A modern "Concert" silver flute has a large embouchure/voicing and large toneholes coupled to an unrestrictive cylindrical bore resulting in a loud instrument, compared to the small embouchure/voicing and small toneholes coupled with a restrictive conical bore of the Baroque flute(now called an Irish Flute).

Whistles are a little different, in that they have more linear air column velocity, e.g. the loudness increases with the pitch because the windway velocity increases. Recorders suffer this same phenomenon whereby the low tones sound weaker than the high tones.

If I were to put my finger on the specific cause for the increase in loudness(decibels), I would say larger voicing and toneholes with cylindrical bore. If you are talking about resonant intensity of reedy pure tone(few harmonics), then I would say Large voicing with conical bore and small toneholes.

[Jack]

Quote @ Thomas-Hastay

Theobald Boehm conducted this same experiment and our modern flute is the result. He wished to produce a flute with more power and acoustic volume(loudness). A modern "Concert" silver flute has a large embouchure/voicing and large toneholes coupled to an unrestrictive cylindrical bore resulting in a loud instrument, compared to the small embouchure/voicing and small toneholes coupled with a restrictive conical bore of the Baroque flute(now called an Irish Flute).

Does that apply to bamboo flutes as well? I've been thinking my G-ish bamboo was louder than my Boehm Armsrtong(the emboucher holes are about the same size, but the fingerholes on the bamboo are huge), but now I'm thinking it's probably just how I'm hearing it.

[boomerang]

The real question is what damage are we doing to our hearing with long extended play (over 2 hours) with repeated 2nd octave runs...oh&s study required

[Thomas-Hastay]

Cranberry

Your G-ish Bamboo IS louder because the the toneholes ARE larger. Fair Dinkum!(no joke!)