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Everything Is Getting Louder

theatlantic.com

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Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#21

Post by vinay427 »

CalChris wrote: post #19

I have 3M PELTOR X5A Ear Muffs. I use them all the time, from getting a snooze while my car charges, to working in louder than necessary cafes, to getting decent if slightly uncomfortable sleep in a hotel. They're $31 delivered from Amazon. It amused the hell out of me that I had to click through an agreement saying I was a profession. I am a professional. Since these are 31db ear muffs, they're heavier than somethin…

Noise isolating ear tips or IEMs for listening to audio are another great option if you want to maybe sacrifice a little bit of comfort for wonderful audio reproduction and probably portability/convenience.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#22

Post by vinay427 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #3
technocratius wrote: post #2

In last few months I've travelled to the US a few times. In all 3 hotels I've stayed in, I've had to switch rooms (in one hotel even 3 times in the course of a week) due to low frequency noise of ACs of neighbouring rooms and/or general ventilation system. Ear plugs simply don't cut it anymore these days.

The US is generally pretty noisy. House walls are thin and there is a lot of AC and heating noise. Whenever I come back to Germany I notice how quiet the houses are due to brick walls.

The church bells create a very regular cacophany from seemingly every direction however, at least here in Switzerland (can't speak for Germany). This seems to be much less common in the US.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#23

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

btrettel wrote: post #12

Whoever decided to make cars beep when you lock or unlock them did humanity a disservice in my view. I don't think the small benefit of helping the driver locate their vehicle outweighs the shear number of times that has woken people up.

Is this an American thing?

In Europe I never ever hear cars beep when locked/unlocked, just the mechanical sound of the central locking and flashing the hazard lights once when unlocked, double when locked successful and tripple when lock failed(door not closed properly).

Having your car make a loud sound for lock/unlock just creates more noise in the neighborhood.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#24

Post by airstrike »

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #6

For me the trigger is TVs. I've been renting a flat in a poorer area for over a year now. The walls are a lot thinner than in other places. There are a lot of people today (mostly 50+ year-olds) who cannot fall to sleep without the TV on. My neighbor is one of them. And the thing with TVs is that the most irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when you're in the same room, but when you…

Earplugs and a white noise app!

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#25

Post by skunkpocalypse »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #3
technocratius wrote: post #2

In last few months I've travelled to the US a few times. In all 3 hotels I've stayed in, I've had to switch rooms (in one hotel even 3 times in the course of a week) due to low frequency noise of ACs of neighbouring rooms and/or general ventilation system. Ear plugs simply don't cut it anymore these days.

The US is generally pretty noisy. House walls are thin and there is a lot of AC and heating noise. Whenever I come back to Germany I notice how quiet the houses are due to brick walls.

You might be biased by the US West coast, which is an earthquake zone. Thick brick walls like that are common in the Midwestern US.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#26

Post by blunte »

Many people either cannot hear very low frequency sound, and they cannot understand what it’s like for those of us who can.

The sounds don’t necessarily get louder at night - there are just fewer competing sounds to mask them.

Earplugs and other sound barriers make it worse by filtering out higher frequency sounds, making the remaining VLF sounds seem louder.

VLFs also penetrate earth, stone, concrete, etc. And because of their long periods, especially when accidentally synced with parallel walls, some locations in your house can behave like an amplifier.

There’s no real solution other than moving, and there’s no guarantee that human progress will not catch up with you in your next location.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#27

Post by WalterBright »

oriettaxx wrote: post #16

the worst are * bells from catholic churches (when they play early Sunday morning they just invite you to blaspheme) * muezzin shouting from the mosque (aggravated from the fact that they talk Arabic, were in many countries, e.g. Turkey, nobody talks arabic, so nobody understand!) and the worst of the worst is that in both cases sound comes from tapes (no live at all, and very bad taped). Any national new legislation…

> bells from catholic churches

The huge bronze bells in Germany are another thing entirely. They sound wonderful (dare I say heavenly?).

But the cheap electric klaxons used in American churches are horrible.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#28

Post by acranox »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #23
btrettel wrote: post #12

Whoever decided to make cars beep when you lock or unlock them did humanity a disservice in my view. I don't think the small benefit of helping the driver locate their vehicle outweighs the shear number of times that has woken people up.

Is this an American thing? In Europe I never ever hear cars beep when locked/unlocked, just the mechanical sound of the central locking and flashing the hazard lights once when unlocked, double when locked successful and tripple when lock failed(door not closed properly). Having your car make a loud sound for lock/unlock just creates more noise in the neighborhood.

Maybe. But it’s also slightly more nuanced. Honda for example works like this. One press of the remote, locks all the doors. The second press will beep the horn if all the doors are successfully locked. If you left one of the doors open, the horn won’t beep on the second press. So it’s a away of getting confirmation that all doors are closed and locked. It seems useful, but when my neighbor comes home in the middle of the night and locks her car and the horn wakes up my kid who starts crying, it seems a lot less useful.

Re: Everything Is Getting Louder

#29

Post by Baeocystin »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #23
btrettel wrote: post #12

Whoever decided to make cars beep when you lock or unlock them did humanity a disservice in my view. I don't think the small benefit of helping the driver locate their vehicle outweighs the shear number of times that has woken people up.

Is this an American thing? In Europe I never ever hear cars beep when locked/unlocked, just the mechanical sound of the central locking and flashing the hazard lights once when unlocked, double when locked successful and tripple when lock failed(door not closed properly). Having your car make a loud sound for lock/unlock just creates more noise in the neighborhood.

Most cars only beep on lock. Some only do it with a double-press on the button, the first being a silent lock. My (older) Jeep has no beep, you only hear the mechanical sounds, which I quite prefer.
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