if someone’s talking, and someone’s standing close, and someone is standing further, would increasing the number of closer people reduce the voice the further person hears?

Question

Basically Are sound waves consumed with more ears or do they stay the same?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Sound waves would be blocked by more people around, but more ears wouldn’t consume them. 

If you surrounded the speaker with 10 nearby people, the further person would hear slightly less because the 10 people are blocking the sound from traveling.

But if those 10 people were dead, the result for the further person would br exactly the same.