At what decibel level does a signal become inaudible?

The human hearing range is 0dB to 130dB. In exceptional cases, humans can hear down to -15dB. 130dB is the pain threshold for humans.1 For perspective, a whisper from 6 feet away is ~30dB. A normal conversation from 3 feet away is ~60-65dB. Sustained exposure to 90-95dB levels may cause hearing loss.2

This stands to reason, that even if a person is listening to music with speakers cranked to the pain threshold of 130dB, then signals lower than -130dB, or in exceptional cases, -145dB, are imperceptible. This means a signal at -130dB is virtually a mute.

  1. How Many Decibels Can A Human Hear Without Damaging ↩

  2. Decibel (Loudness) Comparison Chart ↩

Notes mentioning this note

All about loudness
All about loudness [[How many decibels is twice as loud?]] [[At what decibel level does a signal become inaudible?]] [[At...
How to gain stage
How to gain stage Everything and anything that amplifies a signal can be called a [[What is gain?|Gain]] stage.
The case for not worrying about oversampling
The case for not worrying about oversampling Usually, one adds saturation in subtle amounts, which wouldn’t cause much aliasing. Moreover,...