Why does 50% volume on video and music players not sound half as loud as 100% volume?

Question

Usually if a video is too loud, 75% sounds almost the same as 100% and only at around 30% there is a noticeable difference in volume.

In: Technology

Answer 1

Human hearing is complex. For something to be perceived as twice as loud, it needs to be 10 dB louder, which is 10x power. But to be 4x louder, it’s 20 dB louder which is 100 times as much power.

So it really depends how the player has implemented it’s volume slider. If it does it linearly, i.e if you have it at 50% it just multiplies the audio signal by 0.5, then it’s be way to sensitive at one end and not enough at the other.

So the volume slider should probably be linear in dB.