Why does sound past a certain volume become shockwaves?
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A shockwave is a large pressure difference that propagates through a medium (air) caused by various phenomena such as explosions, or a sound source traveling at or faster than the speed of sound. As these waves pass over objects they can be very destructive as the pressure interacts with the objects.
Sound is a pressure wave and the volume of the sound is the difference in pressure over a wavelength. The question is how loud would the sound need to be to produce the same pressure difference as a shockwave. Pretty fracking loud.
So the reason a really loud sound is a shockwave is because sound is a pressure wave just like a shockwave, but the pressure difference in a normal decibel sounds are much (orders of magnitude) smaller then a shockwave. If you increase the volume the pressure difference of the sound becomes larger. Increase the volume of the sound enough and the pressure will become great enough to have shockwave qualities.
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