Sound more than 140 decibels, he warns, can permanently damage hearing after one exposure.
West guesses that the noise level exceeds 140 decibels, 10, 000 times the level of normal conversation.
Stand 300 feet from a jet engine, and you'll get hit with 120 decibels.
By contrast, the loudest rock concert on record, by The Who, blasted only 126 decibels.
More pertinently, the navy's test array broadcast at a maximum level of 155 decibels.
ECONOMIST: The American navy may soon have a whale of a problem
Zvezda's humming systems produce 75 decibels, equivalent to the traffic on a busy street.
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Pioneer's subs also feature increased sensitivity, up to an additional two decibels in the crucial bass frequencies.
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The foghorns that keep sailors and beach house residents up at night moan at a measly 105 decibels.
In fact, the voice can be weakened by as much as 10 decibels compared to an average speaker.
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Others suspected that the booming decibels of the concert would endanger the hollow double dome of the Taj.
Adding 50 or 60 decibels to that is an engineering challenge that grows exponentially harder as the decibels rise.
Last November Scott Owens of Gilbert, Ariz. set a world record (Extreme class) of 179.6 decibels inside his Ford F-250.
This is a dispute that the Bush side is winning on a simple but effective strategy of decibels and repetition.
Recent tests found noise levels from a vuvuzela, at full volume and when pressed against your ear, equates to 127 decibels.
This is louder than a drum at 122 decibels, a chainsaw at 100 decibels and a referee's whistle at 121.8 decibels.
But in the rich world the decibels of the inequality debate have been matched by the inadequacy of the reform effort.
Ear health means little to those chasing the magic number: 194 decibels, thought to be a threshold beyond which stereos might explode.
It is designed to withstand the decibels of the loudest rock band or even the noise of a Formula 1 racing car.
Over the years, the government has taken steps to address the problem, including regulating low-frequency noise like water pumps, and reducing maximum decibels.
If it gets closer, sailors can target it with 120 earsplitting decibels of siren sounds that cause spontaneous diarrhea, long-lasting migraines or nausea.
At this distance the animal would hear the sonar at a volume of 180 decibels, which the navy says will cause no harm.
ECONOMIST: The American navy may soon have a whale of a problem
By turning the stereo mix into a mono mix having the same audio information come out of both speakers the vocal would come up two decibels.
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In May 2010 city councillors agreed KLM and the airport could move the site and continue restricted testing but only at 78 decibels or below.
And then the reader board flashed 170.1, Cook's score in decibels.
Meanwhile the Lumia 620's built-in speaker is apparently 20 decibels louder than Nokia's flagship phone, able to penetrate thin walls at a maximum of 100 decibels.
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Neil van Schalkwyk of Masincedane Sport - a vuvuzela-maker - says his firm has now produced an instrument that is 20 decibels lower than the older version.
All personal music players and mobile phones sold in the EU must now have a sound limit of 85 decibels (dB), but users can increase it to 100dB.
Even worse is the sad little noise thermometer which surges with rising decibels, as if to confirm the audience isn't dead or passed out from too many hot pretzels.
So although the disk, likened to a cartoon bubble or Mickey Mouse ear, only amplifies sound by a maximum of 10 decibels, the intelligibility of that sound is enhanced.
Because of the distance that low-frequency sound waves can travel under water, a set of four ships emitting sound at 235 decibels could monitor 80% of the world's oceans for submarines.
ECONOMIST: The American navy may soon have a whale of a problem
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