GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Gamo Gate => : February 10, 2008, 12:16:44 PM
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It was too windy to do accuracy testing on the Whisper and the Big Cat this weekend so I did the next best thing. I ran a sound level test comparing each to my RWS 48. I had not paid much attention to the report either of the guns made and honestly didn't think there was much difference. However my testing proved the Whisper was approximately 10 dB quieter than the RWS 48 and the Big Cat.
I set up my recording studio so that the mic was about the same distance away from the muzzle as the shooter's ear would be, 3 foot in front and ~ 1 foot the the right of the muzzle. I proceeded to fire three shots back to back from each gun, the RWS 48, then the Big Cat, and lastly the Whisper. I kept the recording software running throughout the entire process. When I was done and returned to the PC doing the sound recording, I was surprised to see the shots fired from the Whisper to look so different than the ones fired from the RWS and the Big Cat.
I have a 14 second mp3 sound file with all three guns firing three shots each back to back that's available upon request. Also, If you're a numbers person and have Excel, take a look at the attached spreadsheet that graphs the sound levels at different frequencies. It also shows the sound level differences between each gun.
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Well Robby, it was very windy over here in S.C. today but not as bad yesterday. I had my Whisper out today shooting targets but the 30 mph gusts did not help out..:) So I just worked in the shop.. :)
Great graph and thanks for sharing.
Gene
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Gene, of that massive list of guns shown in your signature, which is your favorite gun to shoot?
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Robby, For shooting I have to say most all of them. They all give me allot of enjoyment to shoot. Some an easy challenge and others a bit more of a challenge..:) One thing I can say is that they all shoot where I point them and that makes me real happy..:).
As for asthetics I would have to take the wooden stocks over the synthetics..:) The biggest air rifle I own now is the TF-89.22 which is just a step above my RWS 34 and 36. I love shooting them. They are so accurate.
Guess I am just a happy guy with lots of nice ladies to shoot... hehe
Gene
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Thank's for the sound comparison review Robby :) and Gene does have a few gal's to take care of doesn't he hehehe. Ed
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Yes he does.... But why did he have to be so vague in his answer. He could have simply said I like to finger this one the most. LOL
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just looking at the the wave peaks of each rifle, the whisper does look 50% quieter. i have a weak but accurate chinese b1 that is pretty quiet. just a soft thud sound only when it shoots. it just don't have any distance in it. maybe this test might make me think twice about this whisper. thanks for the lab results.
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But Robby, if he points to one as his favorite, all the others will get real jealous and won't do their best to please him when he takes them out for a shootin' session. He's just bein' respectful of ALL his ladies-- LOL!!!
Bryan
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Hey Robby, great graph. Thanks for sharing. Can you tell us what software you used? This is some great info.
Greg
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The software I used is a free app called "Audacity." We toy with karaoke and I have a decent mixer and 4 mics all running into a PC so we can record what we sing. It was too easy to nab a mic and fire a few shots off. I'll be glad to help you learn all about that stuff as well. Even the Excel spreadsheet showing the Hz and dB came straight out of the Audacity software.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
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Great post! A new toy (software) to play with is always fun.
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...I don't think you're picking up what the shooter's ear would pick up, simply because you would be picking up less of the powerplant noise (which is considerable).
If you put the mic where the shooter's ear really is, I think you'd find much less of a difference.
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I agree. But I would be picking up more of the noise a critter would hear. I'll be glad to retest with the mic on the opposite side of the stock.
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...you might wanna try setting the mic out at more of a distance, like 20 yards or so.
It would be interesting to take this a step farther, and mount the barrel in a relatively soundproof barrier and check both sides of it. That way, the relative levels of muzzle and powerplant noise can be compared.
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Sooooo,the whisper really is a quiet??What do your ears tell you???
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vinceb - 2/12/2008 11:11 AM
it would be interesting to take this a step farther, and mount the barrel in a relatively soundproof barrier and check both sides of it. That way, the relative levels of muzzle and powerplant noise can be compared.
good idea, but very hard to isolate, since sound is actually just vibration. the vibration of the mechanics will still carry through the barrel. you'd have to have the whole mechanism in a sealed/dead chamber, making firing the thing almost impossible.
like I said in my other post, I am going to compare notes with him once I use my dB meter on it, and we can compile both of our findings and hopefully have some objective data. he has a very good comparison range going so far.
I too have a basement studio (I am a drummer) and had to sound-dead the room in order to keep from irritating the fiancee. I had a dB meter from another earlier band when we were trying to construct some cheap sound proofing and needed to measure our results.
it will be interesting to see how much of a threshold shift there is between two of the same models.
when I get home and get the time to set it up properly I will post distances used (X,Y,Z) in relation to each part of the rifle, then he can do the same testing. it should be a fun comparison.
-Mark
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The overall sound level of the whisper is not that quiet IMO. The powerplant noise is significant and likely overwhelms the muzzle noise. I would suggest that the the radio shack noise meter is money well spent if you are concerned about noise level. Playing around with the meter can be very enlightening and informative. I was disappointed in the overall noise level of the whisper. To say it is 50 percent quieter (quieter than ??) only requires about a noise reduction of 3 db.
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I started to use a dB meter myself as it would have been too easy in comparison to what I ended up doing. I have a buddy who is a lot brighter than I that I trusted on the matter. Upon asking to borrow his meter he said, "most meters aren't good at reading instantaneous pops and that's why all the sound level CDs have long tones to test by." He's the one who suggested I use my recording software but even warned me that the mics may be the limiting factor. I opted to use my best mic, a Shure SM58. If you're handed at Excel you'll notice that I hid a number of cells as the info was redendant. Let me know what you see/hear if you do the testing too.
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PM me with your email addy and you can compare the three guns souind for yourself. Anybody short of a deaf person can plainly hear the difference in the sound levels of the Whisper in comparison to either the RWS or the Big Cat. It's not so easy to tell the difference between the RWS and the Big Cat. Yes, as the other user pointed out 3 dB is 2X the sound or half the sound, which ever way you prefer to say it. But there is closer to 10 dB diff between the quietest and loudest guns in the test.
The Whisper was:
low freq diff - db quieter than the RWS 48 -8.90
high freq diff - db quieter than the RWS 48 -13.40
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johncedarhill - 2/12/2008 2:41 PM
The overall sound level of the whisper is not that quiet IMO. The powerplant noise is significant and likely overwhelms the muzzle noise. I would suggest that the the radio shack noise meter is money well spent if you are concerned about noise level. Playing around with the meter can be very enlightening and informative. I was disappointed in the overall noise level of the whisper. To say it is 50 percent quieter (quieter than ??) only requires about a noise reduction of 3 db.Â
I agree and disagree. The powerplant does make a lot of noise pollution that the shooter hears. But if the noise it created was louder than the muzzle noise it would be heard in the recording. I guess I need to redo the test with the mic next to the butt stock on each rifle and then compare that. If you didn't look at the results in the Excel file... the Whisper came in closer to 10 dB quieter than the Big Cat and the RWS...."AT THE MUZZLE."
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On the TOG there is free downloadable software for a chrony, The patterns can also be graphed to get relative differences in noise level.
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Wrong website for the software chrony. The correct one is talonairgun.com.
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After consideration I retested the Whisper's sound levels from a user's perspective. I ran the same type test using a mic and recording software to capture the sound the user would hear. WHAT A SURPRISE!!! As another member stated, "The overall sound level of the whisper is not that quiet IMO".
It definitely depends on where you stand as to how much you hear. At the muzzle the gun is much quieter than the other air rifles tested. However, almost the opposite held true if you measure the sound levels at the trigger.
The Whisper was much more similar to the RWS at the trigger than I expected.
Low Freq db louder than the RWS 48 -2.85
High Freq db quieter than the RWS 48 -1.69
As you can see and hear, the Whisper has a deeper and muffled sounding report than does the RWS. Albeit actually louder from the user's perspective. I could defintiely hear the Whisper's deep long report in comparison to the RWS's short higer pitched report.
Since 3dB = 2x the sound level, then on low fequencies the Whisper was nearly twice as loud as the RWS. But on high frequencies it was almost half as loud as the RWS. Now for the kicker. The RWS had a short tight sound that was nearly half as long in duration as the Whisper. So when firing the RWS the sound was done but the Whisper was only half way finished making racket. The RWS's sound duration averaged .072 secs and the Whisper averaged .138 seconds.
In conclusion: If your intentions are to purchase a gun for hunting that will be quiet as to not scare prey so much, the Whisper's report from the muzzle end is ~10X less than that of the RWS 48 or Gamo Big Cat. But from the perspective of the shooter, the Whisper will sound a bit louder and the duration of the sound coming from the gun will last nearly twice as long as the RWS.
Again, short MP3 sound files available upon request as well as my latest Excel spreadsheet documentation.
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IRBent - 2/12/2008 5:52 PM
It definitely depends on where you stand as to how much you hear. At the muzzle the gun is much quieter than the other air rifles tested. However, almost the opposite held true if you measure the sound levels at the trigger.
As you can see and hear, the Whisper has a deeper and muffled sounding report than does the RWS. Albeit actually louder from the user's perspective. I could defintiely hear the Whisper's deep long report in comparison to the RWS's short higer pitched report.
Since 3dB = 2x the sound level, then on low fequencies the Whisper was nearly twice as loud as the RWS. But on high frequencies it was almost half as loud as the RWS. Now for the kicker. The RWS had a short tight sound that was nearly half as long in duration as the Whisper. So when firing the RWS the sound was done but the Whisper was only half way finished making racket. The RWS's sound duration averaged .072 secs and the Whisper averaged .138 seconds.
this goes back to that vibration thing I was talking about.
in order to sound proof a room for example, you are not really "stopping" the sound, just converting it to another form, in that case heat energy. (if you go into a studio, there are NO 90 degree angles anywhere on the walls). that is why the size of a room will really matter when doing a test like this, as would any other clutter in the room, like say, a couch or something that will absorb ambiant room noise.
IRbent did a great job of recording and measuring the shift. it is very unlikely I will get the same results, unless I had a similar shaped room. thats why I mentioned I would post my X,Y,Z locations, to make it a little more useable. at this point I am more interested in the actual dB numbers just for that reason.
and just so everyone knows, the meters at radio shack are not that good of a quality, they are more affordable for a reason. Thats why I bought a high piced model ($450), that actually "records" the sound over a given amount of time, then analyzes it, and gives you the peak over duration, and comparative to what you (as a human hearing range) can actually hear.
it is very true that on a regular dB meter the sound would happen way too fast for it to recognize it.
-Mark
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I'm pretty sure the dB ranges will vary depending on location of the mic, meter, or ear. In my mind what matters the most to me is, "will my prey hear my shot and will the sound spook the prey if I miss?" Having initially tested with this in mind I'll will say the Whisper will effectively help REDUCE the chance of spooking my prey. I'd love to see your results if/when you get around to testing the gun.
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Certainly a big visual difference in the last set of data you posted. There are so many variables when you "test" sound. Straightshooters site has some interesting comparisons on sound levels of various springers. What we want is a James Bond "pfffft," The movies forget about the reality of mechanical sounds of airguns etc.
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I guess to really seperate out muzzle sound from the spring sound you would have to build a box to hold the rifle with only the muzzle sticking out and place the mic down range.
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A bit of info to add, I popped my rubber butt plate off and seen how big the hollow stock is. It is cavernous. I could not find any thick foam or propper filler but did find a NERF football that I split in half and stuffed into the stock. I shoe horned it in with a chisel and filled the whole stock to the top, put my butt plate back on and shot it a couple of times. What I did notice was a bit better balence and a large difference in the "shooters" noise level. It took alot of the twang and just left the smack, and a much deeper smack, no more resonance or vibration, probably worth doing again. Just my thoughts.
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Sounds like an idea. Maybe I'll get around to stuffing the butt of the stock and redoing the sound tests at the trigger area. Bad thing is, I'll have to redo the full test before and after because the mic volume level may not match my initial test.