Why do appliance’s volumes (eg. TV, radio) use an arbitrary 1 to X value instead of basing the value on decibels?
In: Technology
Because dB measure relative loudness and work on a logarithmic scale. Try getting your average consumer to understand what that is and how it works. It’s time consuming and completely unnecessary for setting a desired volume on a TV or radio. It’s much simpler and easier to use for consumers to just have linear number going from 0 or 1 to whatever.
If you run your signal through different amplifiers and speakers, the db markings become meaningless. The arbitrary numbers make more sense.
Plus db isn’t a linear thing relative to how you hear and experience loudness and the controls themselves are non linear. So to accurately mark off db levels might result in unevenly spaced markings.
High-end stereos for audiophiles, or studio monitors, typically do use decibels.
The problem with decibels is that either you’d have relative loudness – where 0 is the maximum and anything softer is a negative number – or you’d have absolute loudness, in which case headphones would only go up to some small number and your stereo would go up to some other number. It’d be confusing for most people either way.
Because if they used dB, the vast majority of consumers don’t really know what decibels are and would be confused by 0 being maximum volume. Typical users only care about “louder” and “quieter” and are perfectly happy with arbitrary volume scales.
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