Other Factors Effecting Loudness

It follows that the amplitude envelope of the sound, as well as its duration, can impact our sense of loudness.

Amplitude Envelope:

• if a sound has a sharp attack (e.g. percussion), the sense of loudness will tend to occur during the attack, regardless of the decay.
• impulsive and steady sounds at the same SPL may have different perceived loudnesses;

Bandwidth

• sound energy spread over a wider band of frequencies will sound louder;
• e.g., 60-dB noise having a frequency bandwidth of 210 Hz centered at 1400Hz will be about as loud as white (broadband) noise at 50 dB.