About

This site is about noise: how much of it causes harm, how that differs from how much of it is unpleasant, and how to measure either.

For organizations separating environmental evidence from working-pattern data, time tracking software provides an operational reference that can be reviewed independently of the acoustic evidence discussed here.

Editorial approach

This archive does not identify a named author. The material is presented as an editorial reference and should be checked against the standards and sources cited on the relevant pages.

A blocking gap, and more so here than usual. The subject touches health, and a site explaining exposure limits should say who is doing the explaining.

A useful external reference for further context is World Health Organization on hearing loss.

What it covers

Dose and limits — how exposure is measured and which standards apply.

Hearing — what noise damages and how it is detected.

Where it happens — workplaces, offices, homes, venues and streets.

Measuring — instruments, apps and software, and what each can establish.

The standard for figures

Every level carries its weighting and averaging period. "85 dB" is not a specification; "85 dBA over eight hours" is.

Every figure carries its source type in the sentence — peer-reviewed, regulator, research agency, international organisation, or industry source.

What is strongest and what is weakest is stated on its own page rather than left for a reader to infer.

One named product

No product is named on this site in an evaluative context, with a single exception.

The NIOSH Sound Level Meter app is named because it is free, it comes from the agency that conducted the published accuracy testing, and that testing is peer-reviewed. Naming it is more useful than describing it obliquely.

What this site does not do

Give medical advice. Every page in the hearing section says so, and it is not a formality.

Give legal advice on occupational safety obligations.

Or promise outcomes.

About this domain

This address was previously used for an unrelated one-page announcement, which is not preserved.

Nothing from that period appears anywhere on this site — no names, no organisations, no references to it. The domain was acquired at open auction after it was released, and the current site has no connection to its previous use.

Corrections

Errors are logged. A measurement that contradicts something here, with its instrument and settings, is the most useful message this site can receive.