# Loud Noises at Night



## Mark Seaton (Jun 22, 2006)

*Loud Noises at Night (Fireworks!)*

Hi guys,

A few weeks ago I mentioned elsewhere that Tom Danley had given me an early copy of a recording he made at night on the 4th of July. Tom has some cool microphone designs he has been playing with, and this uses one of them that gives a rather impressive realism to being at the live event. Yesterday I got an e-mail from Tom that a clip of this recording has been posted so others can download it and play.

This is an uncompressed recording, and the dynamic range is huge at roughly 70dB. :scared: 

The peak to average ratio is around 40dB. This means it doesn't sound terribly loud, but the peaks can easily be pushed to clip a system. There is also a lot of low frequency energy in it.  

Translation: *BE VERY CAREFUL!* 

On a system with good dynamics and extension this should sound very realistic with the expected shockwave-like sensation if reproduced properly. The explosions shake just about everything in my house at the point I'm starting to clip the subwoofer amp. Again, start at moderate to lower levels. Other than the last minute it's not the most exciting thing, but quite realistic and interesting to play with.

I'm expecting Ilkka to have a few spectrograms plotted before the end of the weekend.  

Here is what Tom Danley added in his e-mail:

_Hi all

On the 4th of July I set up a microphone invention I am working on in my 
backyard and recorded the Town’s fireworks display. This was set off 
about 3/8 mile away from me and off to one side (the right side). Far off (about 
½ mile) in the distance one can faintly hear a band playing at a park..
I thought people might enjoy this recording too as it is an exercise in dynamic 
range, so I edited out the last 4 min or so of it and put it on our website for 
download.
WARNING this recording goes up to zero dB on the peaks although it sounds 
“quiet” so play it quietly before cranking it up. Clipping anywhere in the 
chain will usually be audible too.
Also, I tried making an MP3 out of it so it would be easier to e-mail but even 
at 320K it absolutely ruined it…. REALLY.
Anyway, unzip it and burn it onto a CD and see what you think.
One last thought, since this is a tough recording to reproduce with most 
speakers, try it on a good pair of headphones first as a point of reference.
Have fun

Tom Danley

Fireworks link

http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/Finale4.ZIP_

Enjoy! :T


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

Mark,

I normally have my Yamaha RX-V2500 set at -30 for normal TV and -10 for most movies. After going through Tom's fireworks recording several times I ended up setting the volume at 0. Really shakes the house (esp @ 3:30 into it) with the PCU @16Hz tune but my BFD never quite got to clipping (red on the input level). I really appreciate you and Tom making this available. :thankyou: :fireworks2: :fireworks1: 

Bob


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## Jack Gilvey (May 8, 2006)

From the title, I thought this was a thread about a randy neighbor.

It's great to have a recording that's not made to be friendly to mass-market systems. :T


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## spearmint (Apr 24, 2006)

WOW!!!

Thanks Tom for recording this, and Mark thanks for posting the link.

This has some massive percussion especially from around 3:20 on. It hit me big time…Absolutely Sensational!

The bass just sounds so low during the recording it will be interesting to find out how low it does go.


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## Josuah (Apr 26, 2006)

Thanks for this post, Mark + Tom. I've been looking for real fireworks material for a long time and now I've finally got some to play with.  We'll see how it goes.


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## Guest (Jul 28, 2006)

Here's a link to a spectro plot. It's a link instead of an imbeded image so it doesn throw the thread into widescreen mode

Danley Fireworks

Note that the scale for this is different than those used by the people making these for DVD soundtracks


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## Jman (Jul 23, 2006)




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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

Those two graphs look different to me as far as how low the response is... unless I don't know how to read them.


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2006)

Sonnie

This is a spectrogram (colored plot) of the frequencies in the recording. The recording moves from the top of the screen to the bottom. So the bottom is the first part of the recording, the top is the end.

Look at the white strip toward the top, those are the frequencies being measured. I was looking for really low bass 0Hz-50Hz, jman was measuring higher 10Hz-200Hz. As the SPL increase the colors get more red and darker red.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

So are these two different parts of the recording? Yours shows red at 5hz and his at 40hz. I was thinking it was the same part of the recording.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

Jack Gilvey said:


> From the title, I thought this was a thread about a randy neighbor.
> 
> It's great to have a recording that's not made to be friendly to mass-market systems. :T


I was thinking someone had some leaky FETs in a sub amp. 

Maybe the next time things get slow in the shop I can distribute some copies to the mass market...


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2006)

They're different lengths of time and different parts of the recording. The horizontal dotted white lines are the timing marks. Mine shows the final 2.25 min of the entire recording. His shows about a minute and 1/2 of time but I don't know what section it is.

I'm just learning to do this, so his is probably more representitive of the intensity, I was just looking for the lowest bass


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## Chrisbee (Apr 20, 2006)

But is it art? :devil:


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## Ilkka (Jun 8, 2006)

Thanks for the tip Mark.  I hadn't read your thread yet. I'm DL'ing it now and you should have some spectrograms by tomorrow.


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## Eeyore (Jul 20, 2006)

Played this while my wife was running the vacuum cleaner and the step-child was trying to sleep. :devil: 

At -10 on the receiver it didn't sound like much here in the basement but everybody ran downstairs to see what blew up.

I will try it louder when I am alone. :T 

Thanks for sharing.


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## Ilkka (Jun 8, 2006)

Okay.  Here's the finale. The absolute SPL should be pretty accurate too (the range goes from -70 dB to 0 dB). I see plenty of DC action! Should sound like the real deal with a capable system.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

That looks absolutely wicked :yikes: 

I can't wait to get my IB going and see what it's like.


Btw... Randy... welcome to the Shack!


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## Chrisbee (Apr 20, 2006)

I take it this leaves the fireworks at the end of "V for Vendetta" for dead? 

Well, I thought I'd better find out so I downloaded the fireworks show.

It peaks at about 3.30-3.50 in Media Player with some nice, deep, loud bangs! :T 

I chickened out about 1/2" movement on the drivers.  

Hee hee. Very realistic!

Thanks


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## Eeyore (Jul 20, 2006)

Sonnie said:


> That looks absolutely wicked :yikes:
> 
> I can't wait to get my IB going and see what it's like.
> 
> ...



Thank you Sir!

I played this thing at -5 on my receiver today.

Sounds like the real thing.

It's louder and more impressive upstairs than it is here in the basement.

I'm getting another amp tomorrow. I'll play this first thing.addle:


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## khellandros66 (Jun 7, 2006)

Dude, wow that was sweet :jump: 

My dad just came :run: upstairs thinking that something in my room started blowing up, esp at 3 minutes 20 sec

~Bob


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## MrPorterhouse (Jul 29, 2006)

Thanks Mark for posting that and to Tom for creating it. Im not at home right now, I'm over at my parents, so I played it on his system. Right now, he only has a 10" MTX cheap-o sub so I can't experience the effect. I can't wait to get home to really hear this.


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## Josuah (Apr 26, 2006)

Out of curiosity, any idea what SPL was the max at the original mic's location?


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## almikel (Sep 28, 2010)

hi guys,
I've posted this request on AVS and DIY Audio so apologies for posting here again...
Does anyone know where I can find the WAV of this fireworks recording?

I've found the Soundhound site, but it doesn't have the fireworks 


cheers,
Mike


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

You dug deep to find a thread that has been format since 2006.


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## almikel (Sep 28, 2010)

google finds all - no digging on my part required

cheers
Mike


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Very true.
if you find the file someplace please post the link, I would like to hear it too.


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

chashint said:


> I would like to hear it too.


ditto... sounds interesting.


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

From what I read, this is a 2006, 30Hz - 45Hz recording from almost a decade ago. Has the FOTP crash scene, the second grenade blast in WWZ and the depth charge attack in U-571 lost their bloom?


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

I thought it was a recording of a fireworks show.
From the first post in this thread...

"A few weeks ago I mentioned elsewhere that Tom Danley had given me an early copy of a recording he made at night on the 4th of July. Tom has some cool microphone designs he has been playing with, and this uses one of them that gives a rather impressive realism to being at the live event. Yesterday I got an e-mail from Tom that a clip of this recording has been posted so others can download it and play..."


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

chashint said:


> I thought it was a recording of a fireworks show.
> From the first post in this thread...
> 
> "A few weeks ago I mentioned elsewhere that Tom Danley had given me an early copy of a recording he made at night on the 4th of July. Tom has some cool microphone designs he has been playing with, and this uses one of them that gives a rather impressive realism to being at the live event. Yesterday I got an e-mail from Tom that a clip of this recording has been posted so others can download it and play..."


My understanding, the recording is a 4th of July fireworks recording......

"Tom Danley's website has four recordings. He mentions that the fireworks recording was made with a mic "invention" he is developing. The content is fabulous and my thanks to Tom."

.....but also, from what I was able to find out online, it's not a recording that will, in the least, test a decent subwoofer system.

Personally, I find it odd that a bunch of bassheads would get all excited by a fireworks display recording when there are so many movie sound tracks that have LFE sound tracks well below 20Hz.

...


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

BeeMan458 said:


> Personally, I find it odd that a bunch of bassheads would get all excited by a fireworks display recording when there are so many movie sound tracks that have LFE sound tracks well below 20Hz.
> ...


What confuses me is, if you are not interested in it why comment on it at all?


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

chashint said:


> What confuses me is, if you are not interested in it why comment on it at all?


There shouldn't be any confusion. Because I care. I want you to experience better and there's nothing wrong with wanting to do that. It's not that I'm not interested, it's that I don't understand why bassheads would get excited about a fireworks display who's depths are in the 30Hz to 45Hz range when there's so much to be found in contemporary sound tracks that is <20Hz. The point, for most subwoofer systems, >30Hz, is no challenge at all for a subwoofer system. From my point of view, 30Hz to 45Hz is like going deep sea diving in a swimming pool. One is welcome to seek out a fireworks display recording but I don't see anything wrong with encouraging others.

If my comments are found upsetting, my apologies. But in truth, I though you guys cared about this stuff and would want recorded material that will challenge your system. A 30Hz to 45Hz range recording, is going challenge a speaker system but it's not going challenge a subwoofer system. Socially, in a friendly environment, it's okay to question a person's motives so as to better understand. I wouldn't expect my comment to be found offensive.

When it comes to reproducing a movie sound track, IMO, absolutely nothing tops a full on bass wave coursing around the room while nearfield basswaves kick the stuffings out of your kidneys. Oh my!

(remember, this post was originally posted some eight years ago. times and subwoofer capabilities have changed and the subwoofer by Tom Danley was geared at 33Hz where as today's ID subs are now breaking 10Hz)


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## vann_d (Apr 7, 2009)

I thought I remembered Tom D describing the point in using the recording is to test dynamic range of the playback system. Lots and lots of headroom is needed for loud playback without clipping. I don't believe the intent of the recording was to be a "subwoofer test". He was using it and experimenting with how much amplifier power and SPL capacity a system needed to reproduce at "realistic" levels without clipping the signal or the sound.


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

vann_d said:


> I thought I remembered Tom D describing the point in using the recording is to test dynamic range of the playback system


This is a subwoofer forum.

...


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

vann_d said:


> Lots and lots of headroom is needed for loud playback without clipping. I don't believe the intent of the recording was to be a "subwoofer test".


The content extends down to 5hz and is uncompressed. It will very much test subwoofers. 
It may even draw the attention of neighbors/authorities if ones system is capable enough (as I found with six 12s, eight 15s and two 18s ).
Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I now have a timeline basis to search my 6 computers to see if I can find the file.

cheers


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

ajinfla said:


> The content extends down to 5hz and is uncompressed. It will very much test subwoofers.


We don't have the file available. Do you have measurement graphs you can share? I only have comments others have shared online regarding this file.


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

BeeMan458 said:


> We don't have the file available. Do you have measurement graphs you can share? I only have comments others have shared online regarding this file.


In this very thread Ilkka comments were there is content down to DC. That's zero (0) Hz.
But if you don't believe there is content below 30hz, just turn this up :
https://archive.org/details/Finale4_201405


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

ajinfla said:


> In this very thread Ilkka comments were there is content down to DC. That's zero (0) Hz.
> But if you don't believe there is content below 30hz, just turn this up :
> https://archive.org/details/Finale4_201405


Thanks for the link.

Without measurement graphs, I can't accept your above. The graphs linked above are no longer available. I read what Ilkka had to post but I'm not familiar with the personality. The 41.5MB .wav file I listened to had nowhere near <20Hz content. I hope my opinion is not found offensive. My hearing is measured good to 10Hz and the headphone gear I'm listening with is measured good to 5Hz; separate headphone DAC/Amplifier and Sennheiser HD 650 headphones with custom Double Helix 3m cable. I'm aware of issues surrounding human limitations to low frequencies and issues surrounding the ability of humans to directionally sense pressure. I'm not an audio expert.

Again, I'd love to see a graph. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong but my being wrong on the issue of the frequency content of the recording does not address the comment I made. And yes, the .wav file has a lot of depth of space.

I've taken the time to politely explain my position and there's no point in my continuing if my comments are not being addressed in their stated context.


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

BeeMan458 said:


> Without measurement graphs, I can't accept your above.


That's ok Beeman, this file/thread is about everyone reading, who wants to test their subs to<5hz performance. Not about your personal acceptance.
And thanks for maintaining a 100% edit-while-I-type rate.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Thanks for the link, I will give the .wav file a try out this weekend.


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

BeeMan458 said:


> Again, I'd love to see a graph. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong but my being wrong on the issue of the frequency content of the recording does not address the comment I made.


No idea what you're referring to, other than the wrong part


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

ajinfla said:


> No idea what you're referring to, other than the wrong part


I quoted it forward so it wouldn't be missed. 

Thanks for the graph. Very reassuring. It wouldn't come up when I clicked on the link.

(i'll work on keeping myself in edit mode before posting)


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Is the graph a cumulative display of frequency/level over time, or a snapshot of frequency/level at a specific point in time?


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

chashint said:


> Is the graph a cumulative display of frequency/level over time, or a snapshot of frequency/level at a specific point in time?


Snapshot of a burst, borrowed from another thread.

cheers


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

A simple spectrum plot using audacity (free software) shows the low end energy.


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

Thanks for pulling the load Leonard, way too unmotivated to have gone through the trouble for what I know was already there


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Thanks


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## rrskda (Apr 22, 2014)

I have to say, even on my very low-end gaming headphones the dynamic range and positioning of the sound is pretty stunning. It's almost like listening to a binaural recording. I'm sure I'm not getting the full bass effect, but I can hear the tip of the iceberg that must sound amazing on a good sub.


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## Mark Seaton (Jun 22, 2006)

ajinfla said:


> The content extends down to 5hz and is uncompressed. It will very much test subwoofers.
> It may even draw the attention of neighbors/authorities if ones system is capable enough (as I found with six 12s, eight 15s and two 18s ).
> Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I now have a timeline basis to search my 6 computers to see if I can find the file.
> 
> cheers


AJ - I know exactly what you mean. I startled some neighboors one summer night experimenting one night with the windows open. It's spooky how realistically the sound of fireworks at a distance is captured here.

Amusing to see this thread pulled up. It is a fun recording I'll have to dig up or get from Tom again. This was an experiment with a mic technique/design which I believe used a pair of Earthworks M30 microphones, so lots of potential... Someone mentioned binaural and this has similarities, which is why it sounds so realistic when used with headphones or in the sweet spot of a good stereo setup.

The bass content here is a great example of real occurrences of VLF energy and what it adds to a system. It punctuates the sound and gives it much greater scale to feel more real. That content is not necessary to identify or enjoy the sound, but certainly makes it more real.


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

Sitting through a storm this afternoon and thought of this thread. I wonder if anyone has recorded thunder like this (not the soothing background noise type). Lots of VLF potential there.


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## Archaea (Jun 5, 2011)

There is a lightning strike scene in Open Range which is very impressive for a dynamic blast. I don't know how low it is, but it has enough dynamic hit that it is often used in speaker and subwoofer g2g's as a reference clip.


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

Archaea said:


> There is a lightning strike scene in Open Range which is very impressive for a dynamic blast. I don't know how low it is, but it has enough dynamic hit that it is often used in speaker and subwoofer g2g's as a reference clip.


That's a great movie all around for dynamics. I'll have to go back and look for the Lightning strike scene. Haven't watched the whole thing for quite a while.


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## Nitrofreakman (Feb 18, 2013)

For those still interested, here's a link to all of Tom's recordings:
DANLEY AUDIO FILES

I haven't played them yet, but downloaded all of them. Apologies for pulling up an old thread:bigsmile:


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## almikel (Sep 28, 2010)

cheers for that.
Just read what Tom says about the files having 40dB peak to average ratio - that's insane!!! 

Unless I've got a decimal place in the wrong spot (surely I must have), that means if you're playing them at 1W average, the amp will need 10,000W to cope with the peaks without clipping???? 

Help me with the maths...
No wonder Tom says "be careful"

Mike


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