What is the difference between the concepts of “volume”, “level” and “loudness”?
1. Volume
The first thing to note is that volume is a widely used word with complex meanings, and it is difficult to find a single definition that can generalize such a large application scenario. Therefore, the answers to the volume in this answer are classified and contain certain subjective judgements, please eat them critically.
1. Explain from the English interpretation of the volume:
The English name of volume is Volumen, which may not be unfamiliar to friends who have access to consumer audio equipment or players in English. But in the scientific community, the word is more commonly known as “volume.” The V in the formula for finding volume, like V=Sh, which I learned in high school, is Volume. Volume is the size of the space occupied by an object, and combined with the word “volume”, it’s not hard to think that volume is actually the amount of sound. Loudness specifically refers to the object in 3D space, so loudness must also refer to the size of the space occupied by the sound in 3D space (or virtual 3D space). But sound is a kind of mechanical wave, its propagation depends on the vibration of the medium, and there is no real “size” in itself, so the word volume is also an abstract unit to describe the quantity of sound.
2. Explain from the practical meaning:
In real life, people intuitively perceive the amount of sound by hearing and feeling.
From the point of view of listening, the volume here is exactly the same as the volume (Loudness) . The loudness of the sound perceived by the human ear is the conventional “loudness” in this scene, and it is the “loudness of the sound” from a subjective perspective. Although this scene already has the word “loudness” to accurately describe the subjective feeling, but because the word “loudness” circulates too much, it is often used in the mouths of non-professionals.
From the point of view of perception, we usually experience some parts of the body due to the high energy and special frequency of certain sounds. For example, low frequencies that are too low and too loud will cause a “thumping in the chest” sensation, which essentially causes organs or cavities in the body to resonate. Therefore, when describing this phenomenon, the meaning of the word “volume” is similar to describing its energy size and frequency characteristics.
3. Explain from the units perspective:
Talking about the volume for a long time, its unit is not mentioned. Although there are many things that volume can describe, the unit is surprisingly uniform: dB (decibel, decibel). Speaking of this dB, in fact, it is not a special unit of volume, not even a unit itself, but a counting method, a ratio. It should be noted that it does not represent an absolute value, but rather a relative value, such as: 3dB is twice 0dB. If you are interested in how dB is calculated, you can refer to this article: What is dB decibel? , this article is just a simple science.
