Guess this can go here
I hate eating in loud restaurants
There were some that the food was good but the place was so loud we never went back
Interesting article I almost put in the science thread
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…….To be fair, the average noise level in restaurants may not be shooting up.
Standardized methods to measure restaurant noise are in development, but the latest data from a popular sound-reading app suggest noise is plateauing at lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Some acousticians believe we simply became used to quieter surroundings during the pandemic, which could make us more aware of loud environments.
It’s still noisy out there, and Wang and other experts point to mounting evidence that excessive noise is more than a minor inconvenience. Our brains have a tough time sorting through the cacophony in crowded dining rooms, which can influence our behavior.
Multiple studies show that prolonged exposure to noise has physical effects such as increased anxiety and fatigue.
Taken together, these effects can make the restaurant experience more taxing than relaxing for patrons, and they can leave staff drained from a long day straining to offer service while risking permanent hearing damage.
Experts are advocating for standards that would not only alleviate customer complaints, but also protect the health of patrons and staff members.
And with the number of people dining out slightly declining after a pandemic rebound, restaurateurs should have more motivation to try new technologies and materials to suppress noise and lure more diners to their tables……
Wang says that each clinking of cutlery and every vowel uttered by a diner makes sound by vibrating molecules in the air. This vibration moves away from the source not in a straight line, like a laser beam, but outward in a growing sphere of sound waves.
The scene gets more complicated when these waves interact with all the objects in a room. In this dining space, we have bottom-lit walls with a large art piece made of orange ceramic cups, wood floors and ceilings, a few plants in white ceramic pots, sleek wooden furniture and lots of people.
When a sound wave hits anything in here, three things can happen, depending on the materials involved.
“Some gets reflected,” Wang says. “Then there is some of it that will … continue propagating … and then there is some that is absorbed.”
A solid, smooth, stiff barrier — such as painted concrete, metal or glass — will reflect most of the sound back into the room. The nearby bar is tiled in a stunning shade of blue that looks incredible, but it must be reflecting our noise back to us, just like the smooth ceilings, walls and floors.
Pisco y Nazca is nestled just below street level. The ceilings are low. In this confined space, our voices have the chance to reflect several times off the nearby polished surfaces, staying active and hitting many more people’s ears……
During a break in our conversation, I open up a sound-level app called SoundPrint. It measures the room for 15 seconds and displays a reading of 83 decibels. “Very loud,” is the assessment. The app then offers to register a complaint to the restaurant.
The app’s developer, Greg Scott, has been looking at data collected from about 14,000 active monthly users from more than 6,000 restaurants during the past four years, and he’s optimistic venues are not getting louder.
According to Scott’s data, the average decibel readings in restaurants have been below 77 — what Sietsema would rate as “requires a raised voice” — for the past two years.
Scott says the number of restaurants rated in the app as “conducive to conversation” has increased to roughly 40 percent, while the number of “excessively loud” restaurants has dropped to 30 percent…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/interactive/2024/loud-restaurant-noise-health-effects/