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How Restaurants Got So Loud

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Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#91

Post by wccrawford »

philpem wrote: post #84
mnw21cam wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Met Office in the UK has a canteen, and at one point, they decided that it was too noisy. Their solution was to make a load of person-sized wool "clouds", and hang them from the ceiling. They look cool, and they absorb noise. A couple of months ago, I went to a conference in San Diego, and went to a restaurant in the evening with colleagues. We could hardly hear the person next to us shouting. I left as soon as I…

With regard to the restaurant, maybe that's the goal: encourage people to settle up and leave quicker so the restaurant can serve more customers? Or maybe I'm just getting old and cynical...

If you read blogs like "not always right" you'll find that most food service employees are not on board with the customers sitting around and taking up tables. They take it as a personal attack on their income and are very rude about people who sit there.

Even if the management isn't against it, the employees are.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#92

Post by biztos »

Semaphor wrote: post #12

Restaurants in Germany I've been to are usually pretty quiet. This excludes fast food places, bars (restaurants that serve cocktails are included in that), low-end non-German places (I don't know any non-fast food low-end German places) and all 3 American(-style) restaurants I've been to. For normal restaurants, I can actually have a conversation. But when I go to some club or bar, I need to align my ears carefully a…

> I don't know any non-fast food low-end German places

In Berlin there are a lot of low-end (as in cheap) Vietnamese and to a lesser extent Thai restaurants that I would call real restaurants. Tend to be pretty quiet in my experience even when they're relatively full.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#93

Post by GuiA »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #66
erdo wrote: post #3

This is a pet hate of mine - glad to see it's not just me getting older. A restaurant round the corner from me has acoustic foam on the under-side of all the hard wood chairs and tables, and that helps a little. As soon as I find a bar that's decided to carpet its ceiling, it's going to be my new favourite hang (I understand why places don't want carpet on the floor. Apart from anything else, it's hard to keep clean)

The concept of a quiet bar just seems weird to me. The problem with most bars isn't actually the volume of the music, but the loudness. The speakers are generally cheap speakers that are undersized and are then cranked so loud they're redlining and sound like shit. I can stand in the middle of a nightclub with a well set up speaker system and have a conversation with a friend. Yet in most bars and pubs, which are pla…

Interesting recent HN comment thread about the anatomy behind all that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18507650

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#94

Post by philpem »

dpeck wrote: post #87
Nasrudith wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think McDonalds are designed for that purpose in a way less obtrusive way - ironically enough by the decorating being loud making people not want to linger. The chairs and seats are tight and limited in manuverabilify for one in addition to the "openness". How well does it work? Well do you want to go hang out at a McDonald's? Ironically they later tried McCafe iniative to make lingering spaces to try to compete wi…

A LOT of people hang out at McDonald’s. Older folks, kids after school, etc. In some neighborhoods they function as something like community hubs (third spaces) during their non-peak times.

I noticed similar in a MAX in Upplands Vasby (Sweden, near Stockholm). People just hanging out, but similar fast-food-style high-contrast decor.

The big difference between that and the McD's (or even the Subway down the road) was the food at MAX was far better...! (so I can see why people were hanging around and ordering more)

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#95

Post by hvidgaard »

keiferski wrote: post #17
willvarfar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of the making-libraries-loud (loud as in happy) movement, but I'm usually bringing my kids to browse the shelves and pick books to bring home, not to actually spend time there reading them. In my experience kids find quiet libraries intimidating. (Which is at odds with my own preferences, I should add, but I prioritize the kids.) What the libraries need is a quiet reading room, rather like the trains ha…

Libraries are not playgrounds. This idea that the primary functional purpose of an important space should be some kind of afterthought is rather depressing, but I guess is follows from the entertainment-centric culture we live in. The purpose of a library is to read, not to entertain your kids.

Libraries of the old world are a dying thing. People simply don't want to go there anymore.

Transforming libraries to something children associate with fun, where young people can study together in groups and where culture events happen - is what should be done. Make libraries a bastion of culture and community. And that is not incompatible with a place where you can sit in peace, it's just not everywhere.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#96

Post by mcv »

There's a really nice restaurant in our neighbourhood, with amazing food, and you need to reserve a couple days in advance. But whenever we go there, it's ridiculously noisy. They went for a bare stone industrial look, and that clearly doesn't dampen any sound, so you end up hearing everybody in the restaurant all at once.

But we are also to blame; when we bought our house, we removed some walls to let more light in, and everything is really tight and smooth, and therefore reflects all sound. We got bad acoustics in our home.

We've got a neighbour who works in a sound studio and advised us on some sound absorbing panels, but they don't really fit in our interior anywhere.

Please the eye and punish the ear, seems to be the interior design rule of today.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#97

Post by saiya-jin »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #66
erdo wrote: post #3

This is a pet hate of mine - glad to see it's not just me getting older. A restaurant round the corner from me has acoustic foam on the under-side of all the hard wood chairs and tables, and that helps a little. As soon as I find a bar that's decided to carpet its ceiling, it's going to be my new favourite hang (I understand why places don't want carpet on the floor. Apart from anything else, it's hard to keep clean)

The concept of a quiet bar just seems weird to me. The problem with most bars isn't actually the volume of the music, but the loudness. The speakers are generally cheap speakers that are undersized and are then cranked so loud they're redlining and sound like shit. I can stand in the middle of a nightclub with a well set up speaker system and have a conversation with a friend. Yet in most bars and pubs, which are pla…

While I agree that cheap speakers used are often an issue when you actually hear the music, more often the places would be super loud even if there would be no music at all.

Some people are just obnoxiously loud, and if you have more of them in 1 group nearby, any experience from that place is ruined for me.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#98

Post by saiya-jin »

JohnBooty wrote: post #68
Alreadyobsolete wrote: post #2

It's worth mentioning that the noise levels of restaurants and public spaces can also be inaccessible to those who hearing impairments and those who may be sensitive to overstimulating audio input. I can personally attest to being in busy restaurants in which my grandmother simply cannot have a full conversation with me since there's so much surrounding noise.

Yeah, my hearing's not the best and I really just cannot hear what people are saying half of the time. It's like... everybody's struggling to hear each other, but I really cannot hear. I just can't do those kinds of spaces, at least not if I want to have a conversation.

Test your hearing on higher frequencies, those are usually the first lost when hearing degrades. Normal headphones/loudspeakers can go way higher than people can hear, so you can do basic test yourself.

I have something similar - normal conversations are OK, but in loud environment it becomes very hard. Its not great to be the only one in group who doesn't understand what others are saying. I blew my hearing probably in front rows on metal concerts.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#99

Post by [deleted] »

tapland wrote: post #6

Locally (Stockholm, Sweden) the head of the city libraries has made a statement of battling the 'quietness norm' in libraries. Most of them now have playgrounds, one in Kista (where I happened to live at the time) won awards for best library in the world and in Sweden the same year. It was completely unusable for what me and my fiance usually do at the library. The study rooms had the ventilation system for the build…

[deleted]

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#100

Post by jlokier »

dingaling wrote: post #31
fredley wrote: post #5

One thing that's becoming near-impossible is finding places to drink (as in pubs or bars) without piped music. This contributes significantly to noise. It's done of course so that we shout ourselves hoarse trying to have a conversation, so we buy more drinks to lubricate our throat, but even formerly quiet pubs near me have started doing it.

In the UK my partner and I have started going to Wetherspoons pubs. They're reviled in middle-class circles as a cheap, chavvy chain that buys-out traditional pubs but they're clean, friendly and QUIET.

I agree, although in my experience the Wetherspoons volume varies over the full range.

I have a local Wetherspoons and go occasionally. If it's quiet I'll stay. But sometimes it's unbearably loud just because it's packed with raucous people in a large, acoustically non-absorbent room, to the point that I hear "crackling" in my ears.

It's still much better than the pub next to it, which serves food I like, but is painfully loud all the time inside - even when it's completely empty. That's not acoustics. They play music at a hideous volume, and won't turn it down even when the place is empty - "company policy". I listen to music on headphones much of the day, sometimes quite loud. So it's not like I dislike music. Being the only two customers in a huge pub and unable to hear each other talk seems ridiculous to me.

We used to go regularly, for the food. Don't go any more - because of the music volume.

Another publike food place locally was really nice when we first went, shortly after it opened. It's become louder and louder each time we've visited - and now sadly that place is vetoed because of the volume too.

Again, it's because they play music ridiculously loud. It's lost the charm which I think was its selling point when they opened, and we won't go back.

Well, we joked we might go back wearing industrial ear defenders to make a point :)

At a fourth pub I went to an informal business meeting recently. It was afternoon, and not many customers yet. We had to ask them to turn down the music repeatedly just to hear each other.

Seems to be a theme. I'm not sure why they do it, because I doubt their staff or the other customers enjoy it much either.

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