In article , news@11:00 wrote:

"John Phillips" wrote in message
Are there any good references to orchestral SPLs in the auditorium? The
best references I have found are to SPLs in the context of the exposure of
the musicians themselves to high SPLs but I don't think these measurements
are easily translatable to SPLs in the hall.

Old issues of The Absolute Sound (back when it was digest sized)
occassionally carried mention of Harry Pearson taking his sound meter into
places like Carnegie Hall and noting that orchestras rarely played that loud
in purely empirical terms, seldom exceeding 90dBA in the hall, but to
achieve the same effect in the home required another 20 dB in level which is
LOUD.

I now have a reference to an amateur measurement in a hall at 12 metres
from the orchestra where the SPL did not exceed 85 dBA during a Mozart
symphony (http://www.quiet.org/noiseletter/spring2003/page5.htm).

That seems to be perfectly consistent with Harry Pearson's mesasurement. I
guess his comment about the same effect in the home was meant to be
subjective rather than objective?

--
John Phillips