Sound level apps

[Sprocket]

I keep seeing questions about how loud certain air guns are. There are several sound level apps available for phones. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone decided on one app to use as the guage for determining noise levels for all air guns? Granted it is not super scientific and some variability would occur but it would go along ways toward standardization when describing how loud a particular gun is. Yeah, I know, there would have to be certain criteria to be met for accuracy, but it would sure help. Just my 2 pennies worth.

Just occurred to me that maybe an applet could be added to the most popular ballistic program currently used. I could see placing the phone on top of your chronograph. 

 

[Rubicon_Joey]

I was into the home audio world for a while so I played around with a few different apps before I bought an actual decibel meter. What I found was that most of the apps were pretty close to my actual meter. However, microphone positioning, cases on the phone, different phones and a bunch of other small factors can make a big difference in the results you get. So, I wouldn't exactly trust the data provided by different people. Then there is also other factors that apply to this type of crowd sourced measuring. Are you shooting in a basement bunker or a wide open field? Is your phone 2inches or 2feet from the muzzle? Are you actually recording the muzzle noise, or the hammer? Which noise do you really care about? It's easy enough to create a standard measuring procedure but, simple things that make a noticeable difference are easy to overlook/ignore.

If everyone who contributed had the same meter, it would eliminate a lot of variables. The "cheap standard" decibel meter in the audio world is the Radio Shack decibel meter. It has gone through a few revisions over the years but, all of them seem to be accepted as close enough. For $10 it's a pretty cheap tool to kill your curiosity.
http://www.radioshack.com/search?q=sm+digital+display+sound+level+meter++pi+2103667.html

All that said, I think its something best done by a large dealer in a controlled/scientific manor. Some dealers have done this but, it's far from a complete database and the info is scattered here and there in different sources.