Show Me Your Air Compressor And DB

[bull_duck]

Please post a photo, context, and db of your air compressor.
Measure at five feet from the compressor, at mid height.
Use the free APP UE SPL. My APP is on an iPhone3

This thread was inspired by the thread at asking: What air compressor will do the job, and how loud is it. As a weekend DIYer, living in a residential neighborhood, and having an attached garage, loudness is a reasonable consideration.

I learned that no standards are commonly known to exist that measure air compressor loudness. And yet, reading about air compressors on the Internet manufactures use words like "QUIET" and "ULTRA QUIET." Clearly there is demand, and deceit. When asked to disclose the db, manuf or resellers hide behind the skirts of "no sound standard measurements exist so we are not going to report the db."

This is nonsense. In my OP on thread here I revealed the db of my compressor at five feet, measured with a FREE APP on my iPhone. When you buy an air compressor you don't sign a non disclosure agreement not to reveal the db. If another reasonable distance is thought to be better, if another APP is better, or other acoustical information is necessary for comparability, then the smartness shown on this forum can certainly adopt some standards.

So, lets share and build a database.

 

[bull_duck]

Model: Sears Craftsman, 150 PSI, 30 gal., oil less, electric. See attachment image.

db at 5 feet is 94. Measured with UE SPL iPhone 3 app

Compressor in garage corner, walls immediately behind, joining at right angles, 9ft overhead ceiling.

 

[williaty]

Using a phone as a SPL meter is a stupid idea. The microphones aren't calibrated in any way. If you got 5 guys standing around measuring the same noise, you'd see +/- 5dB variations between them, which renders the measurement totally useless. I've actually had some phones be off as much as 12dB compared to a calibrated SPL meter.

Sadly, this thread is totally useless unless everyone goes out and buys a real SPL meter.

 

[bull_duck]

Using a phone as a SPL meter is a stupid idea. The microphones aren't calibrated in any way. If you got 5 guys standing around measuring the same noise, you'd see +/- 5dB variations between them, which renders the measurement totally useless. I've actually had some phones be off as much as 12dB compared to a calibrated SPL meter.

Sadly, this thread is totally useless unless everyone goes out and buys a real SPL meter.

Calibrate with a standardized noise source, record the measurement of the standardized source then also the air compressor.

Your comment was good up to your error in judgment claiming "totally useless" instead of using your brain to arrive at a "can do" solution. I believed forum members to be smarter than that.

Unless of course you want to put an end to this thread because you work for one of the air compressor manufacturers or retail vendors that don't want he word to get out on their db.

Being off a few db is better than having nothing. Manufacturers and retail vendors should be motivated by the development of this thread and its database to provide truth in labeling and standards.

Standards can be created, and I understand some don't want the industry to adopt or publish measurements based on those standards.

My consumption dollars expect the information - and judging by comments on the Sears Craftsman compressor on this forum by others, and obfuscation of marketing materials regarding air compressors, I reasonably conclude that I am not alone.

So get with the "force" of this thread. Be constructive with a "can do" attitude. Your life and others can improve - including keeping your hearing intact.

 

[williaty]

Calibrate with a standardized noise source, record the measurement of the standardized source then also the air compressor.

And where are all the GJ members to obtain a "standardized" noise source? How is this standardized noise source to be calibrated to ensure the source actually meets the standard?

There's a correct tool to be used for this job: The SPL meter. One of the things the smart people on GJ often recommend is using the right tool for the right job. A smartphone is not the right tool for this job. It can't easily be made the right tool for this job.

Unlike you, I've actually gotten a bunch of different people together and tested a sampling of smartphones to see how they measured relative to each other. Our goal was to do exactly what you want to do except with car exhausts rather than air compressors. The results of that experiment were that the mics were so hugely variable from one phone to the next that the smartphones were useless for any comparative measurement between phones. The differences in readings between Phone A and Phone B were larger than the differences between Exhaust C and Exhaust D that we were trying to measure.

Unless of course you want to put an end to this thread because you work for one of the air compressor manufacturers or retail vendors that don't want he word to get out on their db.

I've read a lot of crazy conspiracy theories on the internet, but that has to be one of the silliest!

Being off a few db is better than having nothing.

Actually, in this case, no, it's not better at all. From testing, I know that smartphones can vary in their readings as much as 12dB when measuring the same noise. I also know that the average difference between readings was 5dB. Measure Compressor A at 75dB and Compressor B at 80dB. Which is quieter? You have absolutely no way of knowing because the measured difference is less than your sources of error. 5dB would be a heck of a big change between similar air compressors as well.


Here's the least-bad way to run this test if you're trying to sample compressors all over the country:

1) Pick a specific SPL meter off of Amazon. Everyone that wants to participate in the testing has to buy that model of meter. Alternately, one could be passed around.
2) Drag the compressor several hundred feet into an open, grassy field.
3) Run the compressor with the SPL meter a prescribed distance from the compressor at a prescribed height at at least 8 positions radially around the compressor and average them.
4) Compare results.


That test protocol is still bad but it's a LOT less bad than what you're recommending. I've tested cheap SPL meters as well (as part of my curiosity about exhausts). They don't agree perfectly but the average disagreement was just 1.3dB and the worst disagreement was 2dB based on a sample of 10 of the same meter. While in theory you should always do a similar test before you standardize on a given model for the broader compressor survey, that's not terribly realistic to think someone wants to sink that much money into it. Regardless, the observed results in using the same model of SPL meter are tremendously better than the observed results in using smartphone apps. Dragging the compressor out into the middle of nowhere is absolutely required. Ideally, you'd place it into an anechoic chamber, but those aren't common. If you try to measure the compressor in situ, it is highly likely that the unique environment that each compressor lives in will cause reflections (or the lack thereof) that will change the SPL reading by more than the actual noise difference between compressors. You're trying to measure the compressor, not the place it lives, after all. Finally, everyone must measure the sound from the same location relative to the compressor. A change of a factor of 1.414 will produce a 3dB change in the reading with no actual change in noise production. So moving from 1 foot to 1' 5" would result in a 3dB change. Similarly, moving from 3 feet to 4 feet would also produce a 3dB change in reading. If two people measure the same compressor but one stands 1 yard away from the left side of the compressor and the other stands 1 yard away from the right side of the compressor, they're likely to record at least a 3dB difference due to the fact that on something like the typical 60gal compressors, one guy would be a foot closer to the pump than the other! Then you get into the difficulty of compressors that are noisier in some directions than other.

 

[bull_duck]

And where are all the GJ members to obtain a "standardized" noise source? How is this standardized noise source to be calibrated to ensure the source actually meets the standard?

There's a correct tool to be used for this job: The SPL meter.

I agree, an SPL meter would be preferred. But unrealistic to expect forum members outlay the cash to add to a database on air compressor db.

Your argument is akin to a surveyor saying, I can't survey this plot of land with this old theodolite until someone invents and implements GPS with sub millimeter resolution.

Propose a way to make comparisons adequate for the judgments being made, start making comparisons, then the market will respond with more accurate and precise measurements.

Interesting that you can propose procedures above but the industry can't - or won't.

 

[williaty]

Your argument is akin to a surveyor saying, I can't survey this plot of land with this old theodolite until someone invents and implements GPS with sub millimeter resolution.

No, the procedure I proposed is the theodolite. The procedure you proposed is everyone across the country trying to survey something using their own foot as the standard. When you've got everything from a woman's 5 to a man's 13, that's a useless way to try to make everyone's acre the same size.

Propose a way to make comparisons adequate for the judgments being made, start making comparisons, then the market will respond with more accurate and precise measurements.

Which is what I did. Using smartphones does not meet the requirement of "comparisons adequate for the judgements being made". When the measurement error vastly exceeds the size of the differences you're trying to measure, the numbers you get have little to no meaning.

Interesting that you can propose procedures above but the industry can't - or won't.

It has to be that they don't want to as throwing something into an anechoic chamber and measuring it at a fixed distance is the default way sound is measured. There's ANSI, ISO, SAE, OSHA, TUV, and DIN standardized procedures for noise measurement already written out. All the compressor industry would have to do is pick one.

 

[bull_duck]

?... There's ANSI, ISO, SAE, OSHA, TUV, and DIN standardized procedures for noise measurement already written out. All the compressor industry would have to do is pick one.

I am fine with that. I am not fine with no information. If the industry won't provide the leadership, then forum members with home garage procedures and a "can do" attitude "can do."

The industry might subsequently be inspired to show some thus far apparent lack of leadership, and complacency with deceptive marketing.

 

[CNGsaves]

This will be "interesting" if you get any responses.

However, the only compressor noise scale you'll need is:

a) Oil-less compressor - - - LOUD as hell
b) High-RPM oil-splash compressor - - tolerable
c) Premium oil-less compressor (California Air - - dental office type 70 db)
d) Low-RPM oil-splash compressor - - lowest noise level

Only buy in category (a) if desperate and compressor cheap or free.

Make it your bucket list to buy category (d) for your dream garage. Vast majority of DIY garage guys satisfied with category (b) compressors.

Proceed with your quest . . . Good luck!

 

[bull_duck]

The audio visual entertainment forums and industry can create and implement reasonable measurements, and consumers use those measurements to narrow down their choices.

Apparently the same is beyond the level of capability of those on this forum and the industry. So it goes...

 

[bull_duck]

Complacency with the inferior status quo that fail to meet consumer expectations. The demand side of the market is speaking. Indiginous producers ( i.e., USA, but others also) are non responsive; claims are that mid 20th century technology and design is good enough, and if disatisfied there is something wrong with you - the consumer.

gap is created. laggards. Management, engineers, designers incapable of innovation. So developed countries decline.

Thank you internationals - especially South Korea, Taiwan, China, India, Japan. They will take advantage of the gap and succeed where Luddites dominate.

 

[mayday0017]

Great idea for a thread, if someone does figure out how everyone can measure it the same it could be very useful.

Another issue with using phones is they have noise canceling microphones that work VERY well... meaning depending on what phone you have your numbers will be skewed different and all of them will skew the numbers some.

 

[bull_duck]

Great idea for a thread, if someone does figure out how everyone can measure it the same it could be very useful.

Another issue with using phones is they have noise canceling microphones that work VERY well... meaning depending on what phone you have your numbers will be skewed different and all of them will skew the numbers some.

I am traveling in my 2013 F150 Limited Supercrew. Wife is driving. UE SPL measures on my iPhone:

interior 70db at 70mph
exterior 95db at 70mph -
iPhone facing forward,
18" outside passenger window

 

[Davefr]

And where are all the GJ members to obtain a "standardized" noise source?

... a wife???

 

[DirtRoad]

Never seen anyone so hung up on how loud a compressor is, so much so that you consider it a conspiracy against the consumer.

Maybe an air compressor just isnt for you.

 

[bull_duck]

Never seen anyone so hung up on how loud a compressor is, so much so that you consider it a conspiracy against the consumer.

Maybe an air compressor just isnt for you.

What is it about the information I am requesting that threatens you?

 

[mayday0017]

I am traveling in my 2013 F150 Limited Supercrew. Wife is driving. UE SPL measures on my iPhone:

interior 70db at 70mph
exterior 95db at 70mph -
iPhone facing forward,
18" outside passenger window

Not exactly sure what your point here is... do you want us to calibrate our phones by driving 70mph and sticking our phone out the window facing into the wind?

Just FYI that won't work either you are measuring air pressure not sound pressure. Though many people think they are "the same" it is actually different. Go look through USAC or ISCCA Rules and regulations and it will explain that there is a difference an why.

With that said I do like your thinking, it is something many of us could repeat.

Another thing to point out, is when we go to measure the compressor there are to many other factors. How big is the room the compressor is in, How far from the compressor are you, what other objects are in the room, how far is the compressor from other walls, what type of material is on the walls, what time of material is on the floor, how far from the floor is the metering device, how big is the person holding the metering device (they will block reverb sound), and I'm sure I could think of another dozen problems as well...

 

[DirtRoad]

What is it about the information I am requesting that threatens you?

Because i am the president of all compressor design and manufacturing, your threatening my business by trying to expose the db levels of my product. If customers found out it would destroy my bottom line, we cannot have that.

 

[91bronc300]

A lot of ******* in this thread. What's wrong with asking people to take a simple measurement of their compressor with a tool that there is a good chance they have? I don't have a smart phone with a decibel app but if I did I would go measure my compressor.

The guy asked a company rep, got an evasive answer and so now he is asking the forum. So what?

 

[TwoInch]

The industry might subsequently be inspired to show some thus far apparent lack of leadership, and complacency with deceptive marketing.

pipe dream. aint gonna happen.


there would be nearly zero marketing, if they did away with deceptive marketing. why not screech about the deceptive marketing in air tools, and how they wont give you an actual CFM usage of their tool? they deceptively market them at an extremely reduced "CFM usage" so people will believe there homeowner compressors/tools are compatible so they cans sell more. thats only one relate-able example, there are thousands.

 

[DirtRoad]

A lot of ******* in this thread. What's wrong with asking people to take a simple measurement of their compressor with a tool that there is a good chance they have? I don't have a smart phone with a decibel app but if I did I would go measure my compressor.

The guy asked a company rep, got an evasive answer and so now he is asking the forum. So what?

The issue is the measurements will mean nothing, they will vary so widely the information would be useless for anything practical.

My husky 60 gallon single stage was 68db at 6 feet, i added mufflers and now its 63db at 6 feet. Used two different apps on my phone. It all really means nothing.

 

[strutaeng]

The issue is the measurements will mean nothing, they will vary so widely the information would be useless for anything practical.

My husky 60 gallon single stage was 68db at 6 feet, i added mufflers and now its 63db at 6 feet. Used two different apps on my phone. It all really means nothing.

This is so true. Without a controlled environment (think laboratory) and good instrumentation (not SPL in phone), results are meaningless...

Go with the advice of a heavy, cast iron pump, oil-lubricated, slowest RPM (500-600 RPM pump) air compressor...

...they have a cool, chug-chug low frequency "Harley" sound instead of a high-pitched whinning "blender" sound

Good luck

 

[bull_duck]

This is so true. Without a controlled environment (think laboratory) and good instrumentation (not SPL in phone), results are meaningless...

Go with the advice of a heavy, cast iron pump, oil-lubricated, slowest RPM (500-600 RPM pump) air compressor...

...they have a cool, chug-chug low frequency "Harley" sound instead of a high-pitched whinning "blender" sound

Good luck

The low sound like my Harley has my attention for my imminent consumption, versus the ice grinder sound of the Sears Craftsman.

AT the same time, there is an opportunity to contribute on this forum to db, cfm air usage, and other measurements. If audio, visual, stereo can do it, then so can GarageJournal forum. If retail vendors and manuf do not like the publication on this forum of measurements of folks like me, then let them come out of the closet with more accurate & precise measurements from within a controlled repeatable environment.

All are invited to publish measurements of compressor, impact wrench, and other tools here - controlled environment or not. Call it a typical home garage environment, using commonly available measurement tools. No reason we can't do what the stereo and computer magazines have been doing for decades.

So, please post your air compressor pictures, and db. Include with your db how you measured, and info on the immediate environment. I have confidence in a Newton-Raphson iterative technique that procedures can be developed, applied, and agreed upon here. The industry has not done its job; we can.

 

[williaty]

Your pigheaded insistence that you can take useful readings with a smartphone is the fundamental problem. You can't. They're neither precise nor accurate, making them useless for this kind of comparison.

This comparison, as important as it is and as much as I'd love to have the data to find the quietest compressor, is only helpful if the measurements take actually allow us to determine which compressors are noisier than which other compressors. The smartphone doesn't allow you to do that. No matter how much you stick your fingers in your ear and shout "LA LA LA", you can't magically make smartphones take valid SPL measurements.

Get everyone using a real SPL meter and suddenly this thread becomes a much better idea. They start as low as $23 on Amazon. Most people can afford that if this is an important issue to them.

Better yet, since this is an important issue to you, man up, buy a SPL meter, and then loan it out to people who want to contribute.

 

[All]

Bullduck,

From reading the comments in this thread, it is quite clear that I'm not going to make many friends here by saying that I thought your idea was great. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "app" for measuring sound levels until your post.

It is as disheartening as well as baffling to observe both you and your idea being attacked. A stark reminder of the less than gracious aspects of human nature that surfaces regardless of communication medium.

After I finish reassembling my compressor, and after I learn more about how to download apps better, I would be more than happy to make a measurement and participate in your survey. In the meantime, I just wanted to encourage you and your efforts. Even if imperfect and not in a "lab" setting, this attempt is more interesting than mere verbal descriptions that we read "my compressor is really loud". How loud is loud? How "scientific" is a verbal description?

Why is such an easily achievable attempt to step up from purely subjective verbal commentary met with such criticism? Not everyone has an SPL meter. But according to the news, hundreds of millions of people use or have easy access to family members that use smart phones. It is a perfectly reasonable idea to take advantage of this new phenomena. It can't be any more inaccurate than a verbal statement saying "my compressor is relatively quiet."

Please carry on.

 

[williaty]

I can't be any more inaccurate than a verbal statement saying "my compressor is relatively quiet."

Actually, it can be more imprecise than just describing it.. 12dB error, which I've seen between two smartphones, is a 16x difference in acoustic power and will sound more than twice as loud. That's a bigger change than we're talking about when someone describes one compressor as "a little bit loud" and another as "not that bad".

Do we need accurate quantitative measurements of compressor loudness? YES! I completely agree with the OP about that. However, the process suggested by the OP will not lead to accurate quantitative measurements.

This is the GJ, one of the things we support is using the right tool for the right job. If someone wanted to machine a 100lb block of stainless steel and a poster suggested using a $5 pocket knife, that poster would be laughed off the board. Using a smartphone to measure sound levels is as bad of an idea as using a $5 pocket knife to try to mill steel. There's a correct tool for milling metal: the mill. There's a correct tool for measuring sound levels: the SPL meter. Sometimes you can get by with using the tool you do have rather than the tool you should have. This isn't one of those cases.

 

[bseant]

Bullduck,

From reading the comments in this thread, it is quite clear that I'm not going to make many friends here by saying that I thought your idea was great. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "app" for measuring sound levels until your post.

It is as disheartening as well as baffling to observe both you and your idea being attacked. A stark reminder of the less than gracious aspects of human nature that surfaces regardless of communication medium.

After I finish reassembling my compressor, and after I learn more about how to download apps better, I would be more than happy to make a measurement and participate in your survey. In the meantime, I just wanted to encourage you and your efforts. Even if imperfect and not in a "lab" setting, this attempt is more interesting than mere verbal descriptions that we read "my compressor is really loud". How loud is loud? How "scientific" is a verbal description?

Why is such an easily achievable attempt to step up from purely subjective verbal commentary met with such criticism? Not everyone has an SPL meter. But according to the news, hundreds of millions of people use or have easy access to family members that use smart phones. It is a perfectly reasonable idea to take advantage of this new phenomena. It can't be any more inaccurate than a verbal statement saying "my compressor is relatively quiet."

Please carry on.

You know i was thinking the same thing. I will take a reading on my compressor just to have some sort of number. I need to install an app for droid phones. Agreed that super quiet and very loud are all very relative statements. What if a person has been listening to very loud air compressor his whole life and now can't hear, his opinion of loud might be different than say a teen age kid starting off a shop in their parents garage.

 

[larry_g]

It is obvious to me that Williaty has some knowledge of this subject. In my past work the company built an anechoic chamber to the tune of a couple million dollars. Necessary to make accurate measurements. Proposing what is proposed is akin to using a free yard stick to measure the bore of an engine block, the piston that fits it and declaring the piston to bore clearance.

Now dirtroad above has the right idea on what to do with this app. Take a reading, make a change, take a reading. Those two readings should be relative and give some idea if the change made a difference.

I have to agree with Williaty here, way to many variables in the testing procedure, way to much variance in the test instrument.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[TwoInch]

If retail vendors and manuf do not like the publication on this forum of measurements of folks like me, then let them come out of the closet with more accurate & precise measurements from within a controlled repeatable environment.
.

im curious where this conspiracy theory stuff is coming from?? what makes you think the companies would ever care the slightest bit what some random people with smartphone apps say on the internet about how "loud" their compressors are??

i just dont get that part at all... is it an attempt at some sort of subliminal reverse psychology to call them out and make the companies care about something they surely dont give a single **** about?

about the other thread, have you thought about making a sound barrier insulated compartment to house your compressor of choice in? could even vent it with a small exhaust fan for air flow/cooling....

 

[Albiemanmike]

pipe dream. aint gonna happen.


there would be nearly zero marketing, if they did away with deceptive marketing. why not screech about the deceptive marketing in air tools, and how they wont give you an actual CFM usage of their tool? they deceptively market them at an extremely reduced "CFM usage" so people will believe there homeowner compressors/tools are compatible so they cans sell more. thats only one relate-able example, there are thousands.

This is much more like a conspiracy than the sound level argument and has annoyed me for years. I am on my third compressor and finally got one big enough to power all the air tools I own. Much of that was my own fault for not researching more closely how much air tools use and how much air a given compressor actually delivers. I agree with your comment that they should be more truthful about how much air the tools consume and how much air the compressor actually delivers.

 

[zkling]

I don't have a smart phone / app phone, guess I can't play

All I can say is that my compressor is quieter than my power hammer that my neighborhood made me get rid of.

Whats next? Grab a lux meter to see who has best lit shop? Let me guess, they make an app for that as well

 

[TwoInch]

This is much more like a conspiracy than the sound level argument and has annoyed me for years. I am on my third compressor and finally got one big enough to power all the air tools I own. Much of that was my own fault for not researching more closely how much air tools use and how much air a given compressor actually delivers. I agree with your comment that they should be more truthful about how much air the tools consume and how much air the compressor actually delivers.

i was being a little dramatic, but the whole thinking the company gives a **** what people are saying on here about a cell phone decibel reading of their product.

 

[All]

Williaty: While I cannot agree with your attitude when you said "Your pigheaded insistence" to the OP, I likewise cannot deny the soundness (ha ha) of your well articulated argument in your subsequent post. But the former, sadly, eclipsed the latter, and inspired my support of the original idea.

After all, many GJ members "make do" with HF tools. We would like to have the best of everything, but not all of us can afford it. We often times approximate. I don't have a mill. I don't have the power, the space, the knowledge, nor the experience to justify a mill. And even if I did... alas, I don't have the money for one.

But I do have a chop saw (yes, it work hardens and blues a heat affected zone around the cut, but I don't have a cold saw, nor a metal cutting band saw, nor a shear). I have some hand drills. I have a couple of reciprocating saws. I even have a Taiwanese drill press. And with these meager, cheap "apps", I do get metal shaped and formed into objects that I need. The alternative is to pay someone else several times more money than I earn to do it for me, which isn't justifiable for the small things I need done.

And that's what this sound test is... a small informal thing done by folks with meager means. No one's life is at stake here. This isn't a NASA project. This is a very fun and cool way to connect with newly available, suddenly ubiquitous and decidedly proletariat (the common man can afford a free app... and like pizza and beer, somehow finds a way to afford the smartphone) technology.

That all being said, your argument is not being disputed, as it is irrefutable on it's own isolated merits. We are just talking about a slightly less formal and scientific context here. And we don't need to call someone else pigheaded, as that sets a tone of disdain that is undeserved by someone exploring new ways we can play with our tool toys.

Hope that makes some kind of sense.

 

[williaty]

I think you're missing the severity of the problem with using the smartphone as the meter. I totally agree with you that you use the tool you have if it's good enough to get the job done. I'm self-employeed. You can bet I don't go running for the Snap On truck if I can get the job done and the car out the door with something from HF that I already own. Where this whole thing falls apart is that the smartphone doesn't meet that minimum standard of "can get the job done". Sure, I'd love to have a plasma-CAM to cut steel plate. However, today I spent a couple of hours with an angle grinder and some Metabo cutting discs instead because that's what I have and I can't afford a plasma-CAM. At a certain point, the idea of using a more primitive tool that still gets the job done breaks down. What if the only thing I had to cut that steel plate was a butter knife? Is that going to be "good enough" by anyone's standards?

The smartphone is as bad a measuring sound as that butter knife would be at cutting steel plate.

By no means am I saying that we would all have to be capable of laboratory-grade reference measurements before we could draw useful conclusions. As consumers, there's simply no need to measure these compressors down to the tenth of a dB. However, there IS a need for us to be able to measure them precisely and accurately enough to be able to actually show real differences between different compressor models. I would propose that a 3dB worst-case error (which is a terrible, terrible measurement by professional standards!) would be entirely sufficient for hobbyists trying to collect data on compressors. Smartphones are simply incapable of meeting the standard of every phone reading within 3dB of each other. However, even the cheapest $20 SPL meter off of Amazon will EASILY achieve this level of agreement.

So, lets use a tool that can actually answer the question we want to know which is "is this compressor in TX louder than that compressor in NY". Two different smartphones are incapable of doing that. The cheapest SPL meters will do that easily. So let's use a tool that can get the job done rather than lying to ourselves and using a tool that can't do the job.

 

[sberry]

Nothing wrong with this thread,,, gives some the chance to participate and complain how useless it is at the same time,,, 2 for 1

 

[bull_duck]

Ingersoll-Rand
20 gal, oil, iron heads
80 db according to manuf here

 

[jabin]

So I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my home theater system. What is that smartphone app for the sound tests?

 

[bull_duck]

so i'm trying to put the finishing touches on my home theater system. What is that smartphone app for the sound tests?

ue spl

 

[bull_duck]

The Belaire QE318VE has a manuf published db of "as low as 66 dbA"
It carries a price tag of $2999.99
Manuf claims are "... designed for a greener workspace."

I like green and sustainable. But price matters too.

The Belaire 318VE does not have a dbA published that I have found. Other than db, the published stats appear the same. The lowest price shipped to FL I have found on the Internet is $2,099.99 Please send PM of lower known price if known.

The difference between the two units appears to me to be in the ABS cap on the QE318VE. $900 is a stiff price for a plastic cap with breathing vents.

Is my assessment correct? Price of green, &/or capitalizing on green?

 

[williaty]

What does it do that justifies it being "green"? Also, why is this in a thread about noise and not in a thread about Bel Aire compressors?