{"id":2456,"date":"2009-10-06T20:53:50","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T01:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2015-01-07T13:55:56","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T17:55:56","slug":"sounds-physical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=2456","title":{"rendered":"Sounds Physical"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nwheel it back, selector<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m going to take a page from MBQ’s playbook<\/a> and reblog a rather interesting post on sound cannons<\/a> (aka LRADs, Long Range Acoustic Devices™) by fellow ethnomusicoloblogger, Ben Tausig, who is writing a very engaging blog<\/a> about the “politics of sound.”<\/p>\n

I find Ben’s thoughts particularly revealing against the backdrop of recent conversations here about frequency & power — in particular, Kode9’s argument<\/a> that serious bass can remind us that we’re “not self-enclosed individuals but permeable membranes through which forcefields can pass.” Or, as Ben notes (see the list below), in the case of certain levels\/uses of sound, not<\/em> pass —<\/p>\n

LRADs operate in the threshold between normal listening, where vibration is mild enough that we experience sound as essentially immaterial, and where we can readily pay attention to communicative and aesthetic content (music, language, texture), and extreme sonic exposure, where vibration is felt as a force throughout the body. The sound cannon is far enough along this spectrum that we react involuntarily to its painful volume, but not so far along that we lose life or limb. It\u2019s pretty brilliant, in a mad scientist kind of way.<\/p>\n

In any case, it\u2019s fascinating\/macabre to consider what various sound levels can to us physically. The hardware manufacturer makeitlouder.com has a whole chart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Decibels measure the intensity of a sound wave. They do not measure frequency, so for example knowing that a conversation occurs around 50 dbs does not tell us whether the voices are high or low.)<\/p>\n

Here are some choice selections:<\/p>\n

13 \u2013 Ordinary light bulb hum
\n30 \u2013 Totally quiet nighttime in desert \u2013 impossible near city
\n40 \u2013 A whisper
\n60 \u2013 Normal conversation
\n100 \u2013 House or car stereo at maximum volume
\n116 \u2013 Human body begins to perceive vibration at low frequencies (imagine standing in front of a speaker at a concert, for example)
\n125 \u2013 Drum at the moment of being hit
\n127 \u2013 Tinnitus sets in
\n128 \u2013 Human hair will begin to vibrate perceptibly
\n132 \u2013 Eardrum flex becomes noticeable
\n133 \u2013 Gunshot at ear level
\n135 \u2013 The air begins to cool from expansion
\n137 \u2013 The entire human body vibrates
\n140 \u2013 Extreme damage to hearing no matter how short the exposure (this, by the way, is how loud the LRAD can be set)
\n141 \u2013 The human body experiences nausea
\n142 \u2013 Chest pounding is intense
\n143 \u2013 Human body feels as if \u201csomeone just football tackled your chest\u201d
\n145 \u2013 Human vision begins to vibrate
\n153 \u2013 Human throat vibrates so hard it is almost impossible to swallow
\n163 \u2013 Minimum glassbreaking level
\n172 \u2013 Fog is created
\n175 \u2013 Equivalent to a quarter stick of dynamite
\n180 \u2013 Damage to structures is catastrophic
\n186.1 \u2013 Equivalent to a pound of TNT at a distance of 10 feet
\n202 \u2013 Immediate human death
\n220 \u2013 Equivalent to the largest bomb used in WWII
\n257 \u2013 Equivalent to 1 megaton nuclear bomb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

See also: wordthecat on “sensory weapons”<\/a> and, of course, Kode9’s forthcoming<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

wheel it back, selector I’m going to take a page from MBQ’s playbook and reblog a rather interesting post on sound cannons (aka LRADs, Long Range Acoustic Devices™) by fellow ethnomusicoloblogger, Ben Tausig, who is writing a very engaging blog about the “politics of sound.” I find Ben’s thoughts particularly revealing against the backdrop of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[191,277,105],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ethno","tag-sound","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8334,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/8334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}