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Sound (audio) health


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Urban noise pollution is being taken very seriously now, especially in Europe. I'm currently the PI on a five year study of reducing traffic noise using quiet pavement, but Europe, probably due to their much higher average population density is taking more extreme, much more expensive steps. They're actually trying prefab pavement that rolls out of the back of a huge truck, with Helmholtz resonators built into the pavement.

 

Terry D.

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buncha namby-pamby commiefascistlibruls they are, real men can handle the noise

 

Urban noise pollution is being taken very seriously now, especially in Europe. I'm currently the PI on a five year study of reducing traffic noise using quiet pavement, but Europe, probably due to their much higher average population density is taking more extreme, much more expensive steps. They're actually trying prefab pavement that rolls out of the back of a huge truck, with Helmholtz resonators built into the pavement.


Terry D.

 

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buncha namby-pamby commiefascistlibruls they are, real men can handle the noise

 

 

Apparently poor people can, but rich people tend to sue.

 

Can't say too much, but I'm working on one such case in Dallas right now that's been going on for more than 10 years.

 

Terry D.

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One thing that was so wonderful about my trip to the desert last weekend?

 

Sadly, it was the fact that it was incredibly quiet. "Sad" because I was so acutely aware of it, as well as how freakin' noisy it is around me on a daily basis, even in this somewhat quiet part of the Los Angeles area.

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One thing that was so wonderful about my trip to the desert last weekend?


Sadly, it was the fact that it was incredibly quiet. "Sad" because I was so acutely aware of it, as well as how freakin' noisy it is around me on a daily basis, even in this somewhat quiet part of the Los Angeles area.

 

 

Noise barriers in LA cost about $8 million / mile. And sadly, several people are killed by gangs each year cleaning them.

 

Terry D.

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I'm miles from the nearest freeway. But there's still a barrage of street traffic sounds, airplane noise, blaring radios, loud conversations and soon. Just everyday life noise that we've come to accept as normal, which you probably don't even notice until you're in an environment where it's missing.

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I'm miles from the nearest freeway. But there's still a barrage of street traffic sounds, airplane noise, blaring radios, loud conversations and soon. Just everyday life noise that we've come to accept as normal, which you probably don't even notice until you're in an environment where it's missing.

 

 

Highway noise barriers are designed to afford a 5dBA reduction in noise at the affected roadside receivers. The only variable the designer can manipulate at present is barrier height. One project I'm working on would allow, if the engineering and economic data come out favorably, the use of unconventional barriers (i.e. not concrete) that might do a little better due to being made of or covered in absorptive material.

 

Barriers all have the issue that they mostly work for homes and businesses in the noise shadow of the barrier. That means after a fairly short distance (can be very short if the receivers are up on a hillside) the barriers do nothing. The federal criteria for noise barriers is that they should provide 5dBA noise reduction but not at an expense greater than $50,000 per receiver.

 

Most states are now testing so called "quiet pavement" in an attempt to reduce highway noise at the source, which is primarly tire / pavement contact noise. Additionally, spans of quiet pavement between the vehicle and the receiver afford some propagation absorption which means that non tire contact noises are also attenuated. The idea is that reducing the noise at the source is both cheaper and provides noise reduction for a larger number of receivers (residences and businesses).

 

Additional Reading

 

Terry D.

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One thing that was so wonderful about my trip to the desert last weekend?


Sadly, it was the fact that it was incredibly quiet. "Sad" because I was so acutely aware of it, as well as how freakin' noisy it is around me on a daily basis, even in this somewhat quiet part of the Los Angeles area.

 

 

This is one of my favorite aspects of the desert, especially at night. Too much noise. I'm not in the city, living in the Valley instead, and it's still too loud for my tastes, and by L.A. standards, my neighborhood is already considered "quiet". No, not really...

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I'm miles from the nearest freeway. But there's still a barrage of street traffic sounds, airplane noise, blaring radios, loud conversations and soon. Just everyday life noise that we've come to accept as normal, which you probably don't even notice until you're in an environment where it's missing.

Yeah... my actual neighbors are mostly really quiet. But for at least 4 years solid of the 7 years I've lived here, someone has been taking their sweet time building one of two hideous, overbuilt row house McMansions, you know, building out to every inch allowed by their easements and gluing every idiot faux postmodern stylemash accessory on it. One of them even mounted a 35-40" TV on the exterior wall of a tiny, tiny second story patio (that just happens to face my dining room window). Happily the big fat, fat cat building contractor who took over two years of almost daily noisemaking to build it, apparently lives somewhere else and just comes down here on weekends every couple months. Must be nice. I guess.

 

And then, the nice, big, mostly empty beach, turns out, is noisy. If there aren't a bullet bike or two racing up and down (there's just something about racing along the beach, y'know, even when you can't see it because of a beach wall and parking), there's a helicopter using its PA to bellow at people with the temerity to set foot on the beach after nightfall. For gosh sake, you wouldn't want to be able to look at the ocean in the moonlight.

 

And then, a few years back my (always broke) city bought a pair of exotic, expensive, short run Euro-made "stealth" helicopters for about ten times the purchase price of the old MD500's they replaced (and much higher than the linked Wikipedia article seems to indicate is the going rate -- which wouldn't surprise me) -- they supposedly have noise cancellation technology 'developed by the military' (probably true, don't get me wrong) but they are actually hugely noisy -- and they make the sound of a buzz saw going through metal when they go into a tight turn, which the pilots seem to like to do. It's insufferably loud. And if they're circling your neighborhood, give up listening to music, radio or TV at normal volumes. The "stealthiness" was actually one of the main selling points of these choppers when the "fiscally conscous" conservative council members pushed through the huge expenditure for a pair of these. But, they're apparently only quiet from one angle and hugely noisy from all others. But it'll be OK because then they decided to switch back to MD500's because the old ones didn't cost as much to run.

 

:facepalm:

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lets get rid of "fart cans". that is without a doubt the most annoying and unnecessary sound ever.

 

i love loud engines done right; 427 with big headers, lumpy cam, straight pipes, awesome. roots blower, super yummy. hell even a warmed over 350 with a lump stick and turbo mufflers gets my juice on.

 

chevy cavalier with 4 banger, bone stock and a fart can; loud and stupid. if you have a fart can on your car and no other mods, you suck. you suck big.

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