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

Sounds don’t get “sucked” by the ears. Sound waves just travel through things and/or bounce off of things.
If you put more barriers between the sound (voice) and the receptor (ears) the sound will be partially blocked by those obstacles (in this case, people) and will lose its strength until it cannot be heard anymore.

A closed door blocks the sound well due to covering a large area and leaving not much room for the sound to pass (the sound will still go through the door and the tiny gaps around the door). People will also partially block the sound.

You know when people are trying to say something they don’t want other people to hear they put their hands covering their mouths on one end (from the subject POV) but the other end is open? So the sound will have more obstacles on one side and not the other making it more difficult for someone across the room to hear it.