Are infrasonics worth the potential health problems?

There are far greater threats to our health than infrasonics. We deal with more infrasonics in real life than any demo session! How many people here are really getting infrasonics anyways? Either way, we deal with much more harmful toxins in the air than listening to the occasional WOTW boom fest.

Agreed. We encounter infrasonics in our daily lives so often...I'm sure there are other health risks out there.

+1. If you have an RTA take it out into your backyard some time. If there's a highway within even a mile you'll get 50 to 60dB readings below 30Hz, from road traffic. You can't hear it, but it's there. And many's the guy who measured his system in the winter seeing all sorts of lows that he didn't think his speakers could produce, and they were still there when he turned his system off...because he was reading his furnace.

I'm going to commit suicide by watching the F'ing Irene scene on loop...with a Thigpen.
Edited by Dr. Spankenstein - 7/11/12 at 2:25pm

I know, I take measurements all the time and at times I am flat to 5hz and others flat to 2hz! The next reading could be flat to 6hz. I love that 2 hz graph though! Anyways, most of the time it is steady to 6hz even at high spl levels so good enough for me. My mic does not measure that low anyways. I recommend to anyone who wants to measure down low to turn it up so it is not environment related, be warned, don't blow your drivers!

Not with that eD A7S-450! After you upgrade our LCR you need to add more bass firepower!

Edit: You just added the Thigpen part.

Of course you could, remove the HP filter, add more with a little LT boost and done! My room required less boost than most but they can do the job just fine, of course I had 8 of them in my room.

I find the science behind these articles quite questionable, to outright insane.

The radiation from our computer screens are more dangerous! How about the cell phones! I would not worry about infrasonics in movies.

Efficiency is much much lower than 1% at less than 10 Hz.

And it's SPLat a person's location that matters, not power.

Interesting writing style and layout for a research journal . I did not find any info if the journal is peer reviewed.

Everything is killing us, we'll just add that to the list.

I can see the new Bose marketing campaign already:

“Infrasonics Kills!!!.......Buy Bose, Live forever! “


Sorry…could not resist.

Ha! I do kill!

*points at sig*



*boots up Steam*

Yup. Lots of bad things are in the 1 to 10 excess deaths (or is it cancer? both?) per million population range. The EPA tries to keep it below 1 for lifetime exposure though 0 seems to be what rabble rousers are looking for (and corporate shills think 100 is fine as long as a handful of jobs are involved). If you are bored, look up excess cancer and death rates from stuff like chlorinated tap water, peanuts, flying, living in Denver, methyl ethyl death from plastics, excessive drinking, terrorists, mountain climbing, plane crashes, and smoking. Hint - stop smoking and cut down on drinking. Risk assessment is a fascinating topic. Check it out.

Infrasonics? Me thinks you might be at higher risk of death from the power tools you use to build them subwoofers.

To keep it all in perspective, ultimately, the date rate is 1,000,000 per million population. Enjoy the ride! Don't sweat the small stuff.

Recently, there have been some very close and fairly violent thunder storms here in Charlotte. The infra from those strikes makes my system seem like headphones.

Infra ill effects result from long exposure to steady state sine waves. Soundtracks are so different it isn't worth discussing here. A decade ago, when I began measuring with a test tone disc and RS meter with correction files, I remember feeling nauseous and dizzy after prolonged 10-20 Hz tones (1/12 octave) from running many, many FR graphs manually.

Like everything else in the world, the human brain's psycho-acoustic cache pulls up the effect quicker and has less affect than the initial reaction. Infra in the home audio environment is a recent phenomenon that most people haven't yet experienced. That puts it in the 'something new and exciting' category. We quickly become inured to it and crave ever more. Witness the 12s turning into 15s, then 18s and recently 21" drivers in singles, then pairs, quads, etc.

I'm under no delusion regarding ill effects from infra on humans. I've experienced them myself. Headache, dizziness, nausea, increased heart rate and blood pressure, et al. It comes from thousands of years of honing our detection capabilities to all of the things that contain infrasonic precursors; violent storms, volcanic activity, earthquakes, advancing armies, hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, shock waves, etc., all of which have potential to snuff humans.

I'm also under no delusion that HT infra has any permanent ill effects or comes anywhere close to the real events because it does neither. This is what makes a "basshead"; that small percentage of humans who want to get as close to the exploding plane crash as possible while remaining intact. There's never enough bass because it will never be an equal copy of the actual event, no matter how much low end capability you have in your listening space.

For perspective, some facts about the eruption of Krakatoa:

Now, you can make a movie about Krakatoa that ends up in the 5 star category in the Master List and crank it to insanity through any system you can imagine, but... although my neighbors across the street complained they could hear/feel my subs in their living room, there's no one in California making the same complaint.

Long live the quest for accurate reproduction.

^^^^


Good post,... there's nothing new under the sun.

While staring at my monumental attic manifold IB (vision blurred by sweat, cell phone at the ready, Nitro under my tongue), Krakatoa immediately came to mind, and was subsequently the designation I decided on.

Tell me about potential health problems associated w/Infra ... Here's to killer bass ....

Thanks

There is so much in this fallen world thats capable of killing us, its not worth worrying about little things. For those of you who remember the lady who died after drinking too much water in a contest to win a WII a couple of years ago, ,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16614865/ns/us_news-life/t/woman-dies-after-water-drinking-contest/ does this mean I would stop drinking water? Absolutely not! But it does mean I'm not going to test my luck by drinking water non stop for 12 hours straight just to see if I die.

The idea of fearing the results of a "what if" reminds me of all the people who call me crazy for riding a motorcycle. With all the people who have died i motorcycle crashes, why on earth would I ride one? Because I enjoy it and the odds are very much in my favor! The likelihood I would die in a motorcycle crash is about as high as my odds being sent to North Korea for work.

As for the research in this article....where are the facts? at what volume do these waves kill "organisms", what organisms are they talking about? what "matter" explodes? This article is worthless without pics....err facts...

I guess all I'm trying to say is:


ALL THINGS IN MODERATION. If you're watching a movie and you start feeling nauseated, and you think its due to LFE, turn it down. Else, enjoy life with wisdom and don't fear the reaper.

Absolutely, some big line arrays from Wisdom, and some nice Blue Oyster Cult.

That paper has mainly anecdotal evidence cited, the least desireable of scientific evidence. While curious and entertaining, I wouldn't wipe my bum with it, scientifically speaking.

ONLY 2 measly acoustic Watts? That's 123dB, people. There's no only about that. There are few, if any here that can generate 123dB at 3-7Hz in their home. We have nothing to worry about.

JSS

At max excursion I get:

95db C-W at 6hz from one LMS-18 in a 6cu ft sealed box.

100db C-W at 15hz at the LP and 107db at 1m.

At least according to my CM-140...

Is that normal?

The DIY section is for way above and beyond normal. Normal is my father-in-law running my old Klipsch 12" from BestBuy. You are the elite.

If concerned about the 'brown note', they make adult daipers.

In addition, there are no source materials that are that loud within that range anyways! The loudest I have seen, I could be wrong, was The Incredible Hulk, which was about 5 dBs below reference at 10hz. Which means 110 dBs from the subs and maximum 116 dBs if all speakers were active with bass management.

The style of the paper appears to be more towards sensationalism rather than a presentation of scientific facts.
There are no references available, therefore, we can't verify. Mostly what I read appeared to be b.s.
A search on the author in google provides no biographical data in over the first four pages.
Conclusion 1 this guy is into selling b.s.
Conclusion 2 is this has nothing to do with me and my system.
Question 1 LT are you just trying to stir the pot for some interesting reading or are you somehow crediting the article as something serious?
(Me thinks thou jokest.)

I couldn't get past the first few sentences of that article thing or whatever you want to call it, but I've certainly heard from other reputable sources that extreme low frequency energy is more detrimental to the lungs than our ears, but that's gonna be at crazy SPL's.

Here's a far more reputable study of the subject with tons of references:
http://pds5.egloos.com/pds/200708/08/05/review_lfn_health_j_acoust_soc_am_1996.pdf

Happy reading!

I can shake doors 80ft away at 5hz with just one sub. I can only imagine what 8 of these could do or what multiple RE-XXX's in an IB could do.
I've been listening to infrasonic bass for 7 years now, I must be acclimatized to it because it would take atleast 120db of it to even phase me, which is beyond what my system can do (for now )

Well played sir! Well played indeed!

I have to give props to the author - the article was an extremely interesting and unsettling read.

The problem is it's complete and utter propaganda. Infrasonic sound bursting through concrete and tank armour? If this was even close to the case then infrasonic "weaponry" and defense would be under heavy military development everywhere today.