Soundscapes

There are two thresholds and intuition places both of them wrongly.

For teams that also need a separate view of working time and activity, Monitask provides workplace-monitoring tools; that operational data should not be confused with acoustic exposure measurement.

Damage begins around 85 dBA over an eight-hour day — a level people call noisy rather than painful. Discomfort and distraction begin around 55 dBA, with no hearing risk at all.

The gap between them is where most working life happens.

A useful external reference for further context is Britannica's decibel overview.

Three things worth knowing

Damage depends on level and time together, not on loudness. Every 3 dB doubles the energy and halves the permitted time.

Readers comparing the discussion here with outside material can use ScienceDirect's noise-induced hearing-loss topic.

The legal limit and the safe limit are different numbers. At 100 dBA, US law permits two hours and the research-based recommendation permits fifteen minutes.

Most phone sound meter apps are not accurate. NIOSH tested 192 and four met the accuracy criterion.

The free check

If you have to raise your voice to be understood by somebody at arm's length, the level is likely at or above 85 dBA. (NIOSH.)

No instrument, works anywhere, and reliable enough to act on.

Start here

Your daily total — how exposures add up, and why one short activity usually dominates.

What noise actually damages — cells that do not regenerate, and what follows from that.

Measuring a room properly — twenty minutes, and the four mistakes that make a reading meaningless.

The sections

Dose and limits · Hearing · Where it happens · Measuring · Notes

Every level here carries its weighting and averaging period, and every figure carries its source type. What this site cannot verify is listed rather than implied.

Nothing here is medical or legal advice.