{"id":1223,"date":"2020-12-16T12:52:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T18:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2020-12-16T13:01:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T19:01:02","slug":"decibel-db-simplification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/decibel-db-simplification\/","title":{"rendered":"Decibel (dB) Simplification."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Or&#8230; <strong>How I learned to stop worrying and count the zeros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The dB decibel scale can often be very intimidating to others, so here&#8217;s a quick way to simplify (i.e. no logs or powers) your explanation to two steps. The fundamental point to make is that a Bell is how many zeros.  <strong>A decibel is the number of zeros multiplied by 10.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s convert a ratio to dB. Pick 100. This number has a number 1 followed by two zeros before the decimal point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>How many zeros?<\/strong> &#8220;2&#8221;. <strong>Multiply by 10.<\/strong> &#8220;20&#8221;<\/li><li><strong>Say that number<\/strong>. &#8220;20 dB&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s reverse the process and convert dB to a ratio. Pick 40 dB. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><strong>Divide by 10.<\/strong> &#8220;4&#8221; <\/li><li><strong>Four zeros before the decimal place is:<\/strong> &#8220;10000&#8230; ten thousand&#8221;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>How about a more complicated case. Convert 25 dB to a ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Divide by 10.<\/strong> &#8220;2.5&#8221; <\/li><li><strong>Two and a half zeros before the decimal place is?<\/strong> &#8220;more than 100 and less than 1000&#8221; <strong>Yes, and half a decimal place is about 3.<\/strong> &#8220;So 300?&#8221; <strong>You got it.<\/strong> &#8220;25 dB is about 300&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, convert 564 to dB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>How many zeros?<\/strong> &#8220;Almost the number 6 followed by two zeros. So 2&#8221; <strong>Yes, but we had a 6 in front of the zeros. 6 is worth about 75% of a decimal place.<\/strong> &#8220;So 2.75?&#8221; <strong>Exactly, now multiply by 10. <\/strong>&#8220;27.5&#8221;<\/li><li><strong>Say that number. <\/strong>&#8220;27.5 dB&#8221; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This approach is much easier to explain than defining dB = 10 log(R) and the inverse operation using pow(10) and gives much better intuition. So, in field work, I tend to just use this approach. This may seem trivial to experts, but any trick to increasing understanding and explain-ability is worth your consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or&#8230; How I learned to stop worrying and count the zeros The dB decibel scale can often be very intimidating to others, so here&#8217;s a quick way to simplify (i.e. no logs or powers) your explanation to two steps. The fundamental point to make is that a Bell is how many zeros. A decibel is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charles-oneill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}