In actual practice, headphone levels might be set so that, when you monitor a recording, your maximum levels (peaks at 0dBFS) do not damage your hearing or even come anywhere close. You are not by any means alone in feeling confused by this! If you wanted to hear that recording at the actual level it sounded like you would have to set your playback amplifier for the headphones so that it SOUNDED LIKE 40 dBSPL when it hit your eardrum - this, too, is adjustable, but it's not super easy to measure accurately without specialized test equipment. How loud you hear in your headphones would depend on how your playback level is calibrated. So you have 14 more dB available for recording before you clip your peaks, and if you recorded "absolute silence" it would be 40 dB below that level, at -54dB (dBFS) on your level meter in the software, and 0dB (dBSPL) on your sound pressure level reading out in the world. On your recording software, this sound might register (depending on how your recording levels were set, they are adjustable) at a peak level of -14 dBFS. Here's an example: you record a sound out in the world somewhere and your peak SPL measurement is, let's say, 40 dBSPL. But you also have to make sure you are comparing apples to apples - peaks compared to peaks, averages compared to averages. Mixing the two systems, fortunately, is compatible - a dB comparison in one system will be able to be used in the other. 0dBFS means "0 dB Full Scale" and any level that can be recorded on that digital system will necessarily be below that full scale measurement so it will be a negative number. In software, the dB levels that you see are referred to the top end of the digital sampling system's capability. So you will get a positive number for any normal sound pressure you measure. That's a very very quiet level - basically the bottom of human hearing range. Your two readings are being compared to different reference levels - the "0 dB" in each system is different.Ī sound pressure level is a loudness measurement and its reference is 0dBSPL. A dB figure is ALWAYS compared to another level (a voltage or pressure.)
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