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Moby concert and ear damage?

The other night I saw Moby performing at the Sydney Opera House and it was a stunning event with superb amplified sound filling the Concert Hall to the delight of 4000 enraptured fans.
The hall is really a vast volume (too big for any symphony orchestra to adequately fill) yet the volume produced by the amplifiers and speakers became so deafening that at times I had to crouch down behind the seats and block my ears......and I was sitting in row W of the Stalls?
I am sure that I must have suffered some permanent hearing loss over the 2 hour concert duration although thankfully there were some slow melodic songs to break the continual 100-110dB sound pressure levels.
The band members must surely wear ear-plugs to avoid early permanent deafness?

But this is not my question.
My stomach lining and chest cavity were vibrating and pulsing with the volume of sound but the bass drums and bass guitar were the lowest frequency-producing instruments on stage and I know that the lowest notes of the electric bass guitar is not lower than about 32Hz and most notes were way above that?
My home system with 2 Vandersteen 2Wq Subwoofers can produce 26 Hz in my listening room but my innards do not vibrate when I play low organ music?
So it must be 'volume' combined with frequency that vibrates the guts?
Is there a mathematical formula for determining what volume at 40 Hz is needed to vibrate materials compared to that at 20 Hz?
halcro
uru975
684 posts
 
It is indeed the low frequency that vibrates your guts.
The Chinese as a punishment for attempting to harm or kill
the Emperor would tie someone to a very large bell,
attached to the ringer, surrounded by the bell.
It rang or vibrated at a hertz below our hearing but over a few days destroyed his body.
david12
1,398 posts
 
Wow, that sounds nasty. To answer the question re ear damage, the best indication is tinnitus. If you come out of a concert with tinnitus, you have sustained a degree of permanent hearing loss. That may not be much, but it's cumulative. That principal works in general, but less well for low frequencies, where tinnitus may be difficult to detect. In general, noise related hearing loss is worse at high frequencies.
As an aside, I listended to an interview by Zappa some years ago. He describes a concert in Texas, where a Sherrif from a town from 20 miles away, came over to complain about the noise. At another, a pidgeon flew in front of the speakers and blew apart!
4est
507 posts
 
Pigeon blew apart? I'd like to see that on Mythbusters!
acoustat6
357 posts
 
Hi Halcro, 100-110db is not mightly loud. When I listen to my system I am usually in the mid 90 db range average, with peaks to 104db. What kind of SPL meter were you using to measure the concert level with?

Bob
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