Anyone use a decibel meter at home?

JonHosker

In the interests of keeping the family and neighbours happy, i am considering buying a decibel meter. They are available for £15-20, but not sure what they are like for accuracy. 
Anyone use one and if so what modrl xan you recommend? Thanks Jon

ICBM

Since I assume you’re not really interested in fully calibrated scientific accuracy, but just some approximate relative readings you can show to family and neighbours, a phone app should do the job.

I had one on my phone but an OS upgrade buggered it, which was annoying... I haven’t got around to replacing it yet so I don’t know what’s currently out there.

octatonic

Use a smart phone. They are fine.

flying_pie

I have one on my android phone called Sound Meter. It seems to work fine. 

The most reliable meter however is my wife. If it's loud enough to annoy her then it's too loud 

JonHosker

Thanks...never considered a phone app. DOH!

Funkfingers

flying_pie said:

Sound Meter

... by Faber Acoustical.

JonHosker said:

In the interests of keeping the ... neighbours happy

Stuff them. They are the ones making the noise that I am metering! 

Sporky

I have a free app on my phone. I checked it against a work-chum's properly calibrated jobby and it was within 1.5dB right up to about 98 dB SPL.

The frequency analyser isn't as accurate, but it's close enough for quick EQ work.

Sound Analyser on Android. It has an error every time it starts up but then works fine, and it was free.