gas turbine anyone?

[Ronmar]

Yep, that's my girl...  Here is some video of one of the worlds largest gas turbine powered blenders in action in Antarctica.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKhtvyGRaTk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It is pretty impressive watching icebreaking from the fantail, watching and hearing container and small house sized blocks of ice roll up and out behind the stern.   The outboard screws hit and mill the ice which shakes the entire ship.  Imagine the worst washboarded road you have ever driven down.  I am talking about shake the fillings out of your teeth rough, and that is what breaking ice is like.

[quinnf]

Yes it is something to experience. Double hearing protection is a must and still it does not help that much. The sound pressure goes through your whole body when we worked right next to them a few times while they run them up over 100% while testing them out before being passed and certified.

Henry

Went to a Moody Blues concert at the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodville, WA last summer.  A couple of them are still alive, but not by much.  I'd never been to a concert before.  I brought foam earplugs, but we were parked in Row 10 (I wanted to get good seats, right?) and the sound pressure from the speakers was so great it was nauseating.  That and the crowd around me swilling wine like it was water, and I wanted to be far, far away where the only thing I could hear was my tinitis.  So I excused myself and listened to the rest of the concert in the parking lot 1/2 mile away.  The wife was not pleased . . .

q.

[mobile_bob]

the absolute worst concert of my life was a fleetwood mac concert at the kansas coliseum back in about '77 iirc
they had 200 speaker cabinets, each housing 4x15" speakers split evenly on each side of the stage
it was so loud you could not even tell what song they were playing!

we left early, and i remember to this day stopping about 10 miles down the interstate, along the shoulder to take a leak, from there i could clearly hear the songs at a level that was comfortable enough to understand the words!

that was nuts!

after that experience i go to fireworks and concerts with a decent pair of ear protection, and then i don't park myself too closely to the noise...

i find that as i get older the pain level is intense with louder noises, from what i have read it is a neural protection where the brain will give you pain signals when the sound gets up to a higher level so as to protect what hearing one has left... 

because i love classical music, classic rock and a few other genre i would like to keep whats left of my hearing to enjoy the music as long as possible.  i don't want to be like my dad who lost 100% of his hearing in one ear and about 75% in the other due to a howitzer blast while he had an ear infection back during the korean conflict... he can't hear the music worth squat and i can tell it is something that he misses terribly.

these kids that drive around with 50megawatt amps in the trunk, with the windows bulging, and pounding the snot out of other cars near them, have no idea how short lived there hearing is going to be.

bob g

[vdubnut62]

I believe my worst was a Van Halen concert in Knoxville TN. '79.  I had a hard time figuring out what song was playing also. 'Way too loud!.
Ron.