White Paper presented at Hearing of

Committee on Business, Consumer, and Regulatory Affairs

July 9, 2015

Bass Music is a Noise Disturbance

By Carl Nelson, DC Nightlife Noise Coalition

Conventional methods of assessing annoyance, typically based

on A-weighted equivalent level, are inadequate for low frequency
noise [10Hz-200Hz] and lead to incorrect decisions by regulatory
authorities. [Leventhall H G. Low frequency noise and annoyance. Noise &
Health 2004 http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2004/6/23/59/31663 ]
SUMMARY. Nightlife clubs are creating noise disturbances that penetrate nearby residences
while enforcement agencies ignore the realities of the propagation and penetration of low
frequency bass-dominated music on sleep. The World Health Organization recommends sound
measurement with dB(C) weighted for low frequencies that travel farther than recognized by
DCRA and ABRA enforcement. DC enforcement also ignores the multi-source noise of
outdoor nightclub concentrations like Dupont Club Central. New DC law should specify use of
dB(C) weighting for standards and sound pressure measurements for all outdoor amplified music
after commissioning a professional study of the acoustics of multiple noise generating nightlife
clubs to develop an investigative procedure that will identify noise offenders and the standards
for acceptable emitted music, if any, from nightlife businesses. It should also require a
substantial revision of ABRA investigation and prosecution of nightlife music noise
disturbances.

Nightlife music as noise disturbance

Many DC nightlife clubs are playing bass-dominated music on their outdoor patios and
roofdecks and thereby creating noise disturbances [as defined by the DC Noise Control
Act. §2799.1] for their neighbors. The noise enforcement authorities ABRA and DCRA ignore
the noise disturbance reality by treating bass music as any other noise source, as part of their
clear failure to enforce nightlife noise violations of peace, order, and quiet.

But the bass music is different, and especially disturbing of neighbors’ sleep. It reaches into
bedrooms in ways that general noise cannot. Our hearing mechanisms are always alert even
when we are asleep. During sleep, electrophysiologic awakening reactions can be detected in an
electroencephalogram for event-related maximum noise levels above LAF = 40–45 dB(A) in the
bedroom (e.g., aircraft overflights). A person may even sleep during relatively high noise levels
but still show autonomic responses. [Babisch W. Noise and Health. Environ Health Perspect
2005;113: A14-15. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?article=1253720].
And DC needs a new enforcement scheme to keep the music out of the bedrooms. It needs
different measurement and recognition of penetration by low frequencies.
Low frequency noise, in the frequency range from about 10Hz to 200Hz, causes extreme distress
to people who are sensitive to its effects. Noise annoyance in the home is considered as leading
to a long-term negative evaluation of living conditions, dependent on past disturbances and
current attitudes and expectations. [Leventhall H G., 2004] But however the noise sensitive
residents came to their sensitivity, they are legally entitled to peace, order, and quiet, at least
from non-essential noise sources.
Some disturbing noises go unavoidably with modern city life: trains, planes, sirens, taxis, etc; but
loud nightclub music outside the club is completely optional and should be treated as negligence.
It allows patrons to enjoy the same music they can hear inside the club, at the expense of the
disturbance of neighbors’ peace, order, and quiet. Therefore there is no compelling reason to
allow the disturbance. DC law even prohibits commercial music from creating such
disturbances. The continuing presence of such disturbances should be an indictment of DC law
enforcement because the means of containment are well known.
The most disturbing nightlife noise is the same human heartbeat rhythm that excites the
nightclub patron as it excites the resident sleeper. It’s not white noise, equal weight to every
frequency, which actually has a large commercial market in bedside machines to create white
noise to mask other noises. It is a steady low frequency beat of the bass drum.

Beyond the issue of how loud the sound is, psychoacoustics explains why low frequency music
sounds, even below the nominal hearing frequency range, have a unique sleep disturbing power
because they trigger the human brain's alarm system for danger, and do so at a volume hardly
detectable, or even undetectable, by the ear. The National Sleep Foundation says that whether or
not a sound bothers your sleep depends in part on that sound's personal meaning:
researchers have seen that people are more likely to wake when a sound is relevant or
emotionally charged. This is why a mother could sleep soundly through her partner's
snores but wake fully when her baby fusses.
[http://sleepfoundation.org/bedroom/hear.php# ] Measuring dB(A) or clearly audible sound
would never detect the disturbance. Furthermore, a simple dB measurement would miss the huge
distinction between a bedside white noise generator [such as Marpac’s
https://www.marpac.com/the-perfect-sound.html] used by many people to mask disturbing
sounds and actual disturbing sounds. Type of noise matters hugely while present DC noise law
pretends that all noises are equal.

There is also a wide variance is susceptibility to noise among people, [See, for example, Soames
Job, R F. Noise sensitivity as a factor influencing human reaction to noise, Noise & Health
[serial online] 1999 Available: http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?1999/1/3/57/31713]
and the present noise law applies to all residents. Everyone is legally protected.

Fortunately, the science of the propagation of the low frequency noise is well developed, which
makes it a sound basis for enforcement policy.

More residences being disturbed

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Worse, the number of neighbors in DC for any nightlife is likely to keep growing as the digital
economy pushes workers into the cities where they find innovative jobs. the digitization of the
economy concentrates economic activities in major cities, aggravating the scarcity of
real estate there. As the economist Enrico Moretti suggests in The New Geography of
Jobs, the real estate market in Silicon Valley offers a glimpse of how difficult it will
become for most people to find decent housing close to the dense innovation clusters
where new jobs will be located. [Nicolas Colin and Bruno Palier Foreign Affairs, J/A2015]
Most recently, Anderson also examines how millennials prefer to live: in dense, urban
areas and closer to their neighbors; they’re less focused on big lawns and cars than on
walkable communities, car sharing and public transportation. [Carlos Lozada reviewing
THE SELFIE VOTE: Where Millennials Are Leading America By Kristen Soltis Anderson.
Washington Post, Jun 28, 2015] San Francisco tech company Mattermark is opening a
Seattle office for the same reason a slew of other California tech companies have been
moving to Seattle: that increasingly famous Pacific Northwest talent pool. Recruiting
tech workers has been quite a challenge in San Francisco, where the company is hard
to get to if you don’t live in the heart of the city. [Jacob Demmit, Puget Sound Business
Journal, Jul 6, 2015] If DC wants to build a modern tech economy, it must make life attractive
for the smartest and most entrepreneurial.

Innovative, productive people with well-paying jobs will want quiet housing in their new busy
city. The age of suburban living is shrinking; condo buildings are mushrooming out of the
ground as fast as developers can find the real estate without regard as to whether nightlife wants
to claim its own isolated territory for noise-making. In DC the latest rates with a top price of
more than $800 per square foot are appearing in Ward One along 14th St. More luxury condos
are also being built within 200 feet of the noisiest spot in Dupont Club Central. Late night
penetrating music will not be a welcome amenity.
In the larger picture, the 2000 United States Census found that 30% of Americans complained of
noise, and 11% found it to be bothersome. Among those who complained, noise was sufficiently
bothersome to make nearly 40% want to change their place of residence [U.S. Census Bureau,
Housing and Economic Statistics Division. Available at:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs99/tab28.html ]

Measurement of nightlife noise

Unfortunately the present DC schemes for noise disturbance enforcement are based on wrong
premises: 1.) The noise is presumed to be best characterized by dB(A) emitted from a single
source into an ambient sound field also best described by dB(A); and 2.) The residents’
sensitivity to noise is presumed best characterized by the nearest place to the noise source,
usually not the bedroom. With those premises, ABRA and DCRA are measuring the wrong
thing in the wrong place with the wrong instrument.

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In the Dupont Club Central nightclub noise case, the residents most often complain of noise
disturbing their sleep, which means that the most sensitive place is the bedroom and the noise is
best characterized by dB(C) weighting which fully captures the powerful sleep-disturbing low
frequencies of nightclub bass-dominated music. Fortunately, their problem of low frequency
noises in sleep disturbance has been well examined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as
well as many other independent investigators that have produced a rich literature on the effects
of noise on sleep.

WHO recommends that restful sleep needs sound levels below 30 dB(A), not the 60dB(A) which
is the standard being used for ABRA and DCRA investigations. Further, WHO recommends that
when the disturbing noise is low frequency, sound measurement should be on the dB(C) scale
which retains full value of the power of low frequency sounds. By comparison, the dB(A) scale
that DCRA uses discards about half of the low frequency power.

WHO has recognized that the stress caused by even relatively low levels of low frequency noises
disturb residents’ sleep and health in the presence of “nightlife bass drums, boomcars, and wind
turbines”. Low frequency sound is more disturbing, even at very low levels which appear to
have a significant detrimental effect on health, [Leventhall HG. Low frequency noise and
annoyance. Noise Heath 2004;6:59-72] Leventhall ['A Review of Published Research on Low
Frequency Noise and its Effects,' 2003, http://www.lowertheboom.org/trice/decibelmeters.htm]
quotes the WHO notations:

 "For noise with a large proportion of low frequency sounds, a still lower guideline (than
30dBA) is recommended."
 "When prominent low frequency components are present, noise measures based on 'A'
weighting are inappropriate."
 "Since 'A' weighting underestimates the sound pressure level of noise with low frequency
components, a better assessment of health effects would be to use 'C' weighting."
 "It should be noted that a large proportion of low frequency components in a noise may
increase considerably the adverse effects on health."
 "The evidence on low frequency noise is sufficiently strong to warrant immediate
concern."

Note: These findings are drawn from a full WHO report: GUIDELINES FOR COMMUNITY
NOISE, Edited by Birgitta Berglund, Thomas Lindvall, and Dietrich H
Schwela. http://www.who.int/docstore/peh/noise/guidelines2.html,

The dB(C) scale comes into play when the sound pressure of noise is measured in decibels (dB).
Decibel meters measure the sound pressure and display a reading. For most sounds of mixed
frequencies, the meter uses a weighting algorithm dB(A) that eliminates about half of the low
frequency noise on the theory that doing so matches the hearing range of the human ear. The
result is displayed in dB(A) which is the standard used in DC Code 25-725 for noise
measurements from any type of source. DC Code simply assigns that measurement scheme to
nightclub noise as with any other noise. Which is simple, but a gross under-estimate of the sleep
disturbing potential of the noise.

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Enforcement rules should recognize that the objective is to prevent noise disturbances, not just to
make dB(A) measurement against a 60 db(A) criterion. Nightclubs present a noise source that is
heavily weighted to low frequencies and loudly amplified as desired by the late-night patrons’
tastes in music. In Dupont Club Central, seven different nightclubs emit low frequency music
from 11 PM to 3 or 4 AM in Friday and Saturday nights, and some on some other days and
times. Occasionally in Club Central, the music is so low frequency and loud that the neighbor’s
body feels as well as hears the beat. That requires external sound in the 90dB range.

To measure the sleep disturbance potential of the noise/music, the low frequencies have to be
retained so that the sound pressure reading includes all the low frequency music sound pressure
which is the main source of sleep disturbance. The algorithm that does so in the sound pressure
meter is the db(C) scale. Figure 1. shows how much of each frequency is retained in the dB(A)
and dB(C) scales. The figure shows that at the frequency for a bass drum and other bass
instruments as low as 30 Hz [see http://acousticslab.org/psychoacoustics/] about half of the
sound power is ignored. Which helps explain why the noise measurers almost never find a
disturbance when residents complain. Figure 1. of a typical sound meter’s frequency-dB
relationship shows that noise in the 50 Hz range the A-scale reading is about 30dB below the
fully weighted C-scale.

Note that the ABRA and DCRA schemes for searching for violations of noise law also have
other steep barriers that block a realistic assessment of the disturbances, which is demonstrated
by the astonishingly rare findings of a noise violation in many hundreds of complaints by
residents.

FIGURE 1. Decibel Measurement Scales

Source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/decibel-d_59.html

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 Propagation of low frequency noise
A second factor is how far low frequency noise carries. The noise code and the noise
investigators overlook the strong propagation of low frequency sounds through the air and into
structures. The attenuation of sound in air increases with the square of the frequency of the sound
and is very low at low frequencies. The decline in sound pressure as the sound wave propagates
hemispherically from then noise source happens much faster in high frequencies that in low
frequencies as seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2. How propagation of sound varies with frequency

Source: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/87751/do-low-frequency-sounds-really-
carry-longer-distances

As the frequency rises from the bass drum’s 50 Hz to the saxophone’s 1000 Hz, the attenuation
factor (the rate of decline in sound power) rises from .001 to .035. For reference, middle C on a
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piano is at about 261Hz. That is, the high frequencies have declined 35 times more strongly than
the low frequencies. But a dB(A) scale measurement of the sound will ignore about half of the
difference. It does so especially in Club Central clubs that boost the low frequency component
with specialized powerful speakers called sub-woofers.

When the sound gets to the residence outer wall, another factor is overlooked in assessing the
penetration of the low frequencies into the bedroom. Actually, the DC noise law protects
residents with open windows that offer no barrier at all to any music, but ABRA and DCRA
investigators have arbitrarily insisted that only disturbances with windows closed will be
recognized. The solid walls actually transmit the lower frequency components. If a neighbor
plays loud music in the next apartment, you will hear the bass instruments through the wall. One
reality of bedroom walls is that low frequencies always penetrate even a thick wall whereas high
frequencies cannot penetrate even a thin wall. Figure 3. shows the range of possibilities for
frequency and thickness same kind of frequency dependence of the attenuation as in the air.
From this figure a modestly thick wall of 50 kg/msq will reduce a 1000 Hz saxophone by about
46 dB, that is, a Club Central sax sound striking the wall at 60 dB would not disturb a sleeper
inside at only 16dB. But a 50Hz drum sound would be reduced by only about 20 dB to 40 dB,
which combined with the special disturbing power of the drum beat would certainly not meet the
WHO standard.

Figure 3. Transmission loss with frequency

Transmission loss [dB] approximately: TL = 20 log10 (ms f) - 48

where ms is the mass per unit area, [kg/m²]; and f is the frequency of the sound wave, [Hz].

Source: http://personal.inet.fi/koti/juhladude/soundproofing.html

For example, a wall surface mass of 20 kg/m, a sound wave at 100 Hz (drum) will lose 18 dB
and a wave at 1000Hz (a saxophone) will lose about 33 dB. That is, the lower frequency wave
will penetrate twice as far. For that mass wall, a drum beat of 60 dB will enter the room at 42 dB
but the higher frequency will enter at 27 dB. Restful sleep requires 30 dB or less.

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Residents’ walls and windows in Dupont Club Central are a mix of ceramic walls and glass
windows. The windows are the weak spot because at low frequencies they attenuate only about
20 dB of low frequency sound. When Club Central is in full swing, several clubs emanate loud
music well over 70 dB at their boundary as they add to the nearly white noise of the streets. The
resulting noise at the residences is not easily calculated, but the low frequencies are sure to be a
large component of the sound striking the residences.

Note again that this entire section on wall penetration is academic because the present noise law
does not require club neighbors to close their windows while the club entertains its patrons.

Unfortunately for the residents’ hope of protection, the multiple sources actually add to the noise
but inhibit present enforcement, because the law permits the club to use the cumulative noise as a
base measure. Which destabilizes any attempt at enforcement. A new approach is needed for
multiple simultaneous music generators.

All these factors taken together mean that neighbors of the seven clubs of Club Central are not
being served by ABRA investigations that discard or ignore the realistic noise disturbance. It is
clear that listening for external music sound in a resident’s living room, even the spot closest to
the suspected source, will not say anything about whether the resident is the victim of a noise
disturbance.

Therefore ABRA needs an entirely new protocol to judge whether a music source is creating a
noise disturbance as defined in DC Code 20-2700.

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Use dB(C) for standards and sound pressure measurements for all outdoor amplified music
(need specification);

2. Order any offending club to reduce music volume if music can be clearly heard outside the
club, and penalize repetition as a serious violation;

3. Order ABRA to investigate any report by a resident of a measured sound pressure more than
65 dB(A) or 70 dB(C) of loud music heard outside the club;

4. Commission a professional study of the acoustics of multiple noise generating nightlife clubs
to develop an investigative procedure that will identify noise offenders and the standards for
acceptable emitted music from nightlife businesses.