Where’s The Energy?

Understanding
The SPL Metric “dB C Minus A”
When measuring SPL (sound pressure level), indicating the frequency weighting
curve used for the measurement is critical. In Figure 1, we see the A (orange) and
C (red) weighting curves, the two choices you are likely to encounter on a typical
SPL meter, thanks to IEC 61672.

Figure 1

Although these weighting curves owe their creation to a failed attempt at

emulating human tonal perception at various SPLs, the focus of this discussion
is their remarkable difference in the low-frequency range. While the C curve
extends all the way to the lower limits of human hearing with only a slight
rolloff, the A curve has a significant LF rolloff, hitting about -20 dB by 100 Hz. In
practical terms, the subwoofer range is virtually ignored

(As an aside, this highlights the ineffectiveness of using A-Weighted

measurements to evaluate nuisance noise complaints, as most current legislation
specifies, therefore completely ignoring the most commonly problematic
frequency range.)
So, the rule of thumb for SPL measurements is to use C Weighting if you want
the measurement to include the sub range and use A Weighting if you don’t. (A
Weighting is widely used for sound exposure measurements because it tends to
correlate well with noise-induced hearing loss.)

The focus here is the additional information to be gained by looking at both C

and A Weighted data together. (With apologies to Tolkien, there is no one metric
to rule them all. Viewing multiple metrics gives us much more context.)

If C levels are significantly higher than A levels, we know that there’s a lot of
energy concentrated in the lower frequency range, where the A scale isn’t
sensitive to it. If the readings are similar in level, that tells us that most of the
energy is higher up in the frequency range.

Figure 2 shows an actual example. Here we have two songs from a small outdoor
concert I mixed back in the summer of 2019, viewing SPL C Slow and SPL A
slow. We can see the C Weighted levels are pretty steadily about 4 to 5 dB higher
than the A Weighted levels.

Figure 2

To clarify the data, let’s look at Leq 1 and Leq 10 in Figure 3. Throughout this
time range, the average level for the C-Weighted data (L50) is 5.3 dB higher than
the L50 for the A-Weighted data. In other words, C-A = 5.3 dB. (And, as a note,
this is a relative value, comparing two dB SPL values, so the unit is dB, not dB
SPL.)
Figure 3

Although it’s good practice to include a time specifier (Fast, Slow, Leq 1, etc), in
most cases the C-A value stays pretty consistent, within about a dB, regardless of
the time window we look at (because both measurements are using the same
time integration).

In simple terms, the C-A metric is sort of a one-number indicator of the amount
of “tilt,” or how much of the signal’s energy is concentrated in the LF region.
This makes it a remarkably useful metric for show-to-show mix consistency,
especially when dealing with a different room and PA system each night.

C-A also plays a role in sound exposure and noise pollution applications. A
Weighted SPL is generally a good indicator for noise-induced hearing loss,
although extremely high levels of low frequency energy can be damaging, so if a
mix has a high C-A value, that is a good indicator that additional attention
should be paid to LF exposure. (This is detailed in the AES Technical Group
paper regarding sound exposure and noise pollution, available at aes.org, to
which I was a contributor.)

Trimming It Back: Applying A Subtractive Approach To System Optimization

Smaart (from Rational Acoustics) currently calculates a Leq1 C-A as a logfile

metric, but due to its usefulness as both a mixing tool and for health and safety
considerations, update v8.5 will add “C-A” as a weighting curve option for Leq
measurements, which makes it available as real-time data both in the SPL
History Timeline and on a meter (Figure 4).
Figure 4

In the process of testing this feature, I’ve found Leq 1 C-A to be a very useful
metric overall, with a shorter term Leq 3s C-A behaving very similarly to an “SPL
Slow” type of meter ballistic, which is helpful for studying short sections of
music. It should be noted that the average (L50) of both metrics tend to closely
agree over longer periods of time. A few experimentally-determined
observations:

• Pink noise extending from 20 Hz to 20 kHz has a C-A of just less than 2 dB.

• Recorded music tends to have a C-A of about 4 to 5 dB, which is relatively

consistent over genre, with outliers being some jazz and orchestral music, which
had a C-A of about 1 to 2 dB in my tests.

• Live music tends to have a C-A of about 8 dB, but this varies a bit as well. Using
data from 14 concerts I metered during 2019, the mean C-A was 8.6 dB, with a
standard deviation of 2.2 dB. This squares with our expectation that live music
generally has more LF energy than recorded music.

• We’re used to thinking of a 10 dB increase as perceptually about “twice as loud”

but a closer look at the Equal Loudness Contours reveals that, in the LF region,
the Contours are very closely packed vertically. This tells us that in the
subwoofer range, about a 5 dB increase in SPL results in a 10 phon increase,
which represents a doubling of perceived loudness. Therefore, the LF range
during a typical live concert could be considered more than twice as much
subbass to a typical listener when compared to a typical album mix played at the
same level.

However, we can’t fall into the trap of simply thinking about C-A as “sub energy
indicator.” For example, in the bluegrass song measurement depicted in Figure
5, the C-A value continuously decreases as the song progresses. This doesn’t
mean the LF energy is decreasing as the song goes on! In fact, it remains
relatively consistent throughout.

Figure 5

What’s really going on here is that the A-weighted level is increasing due to the
more extensive 3-part vocal harmonies towards the end of the song. That’s more
hi-mid/HF content towards the end, which changes the overall distribution of
energy in the frequency spectrum more towards the HF. Viewing the C- and A-
Weighted Leq 3s data in Figure 6 reveals the trend.
Figure 6

So, a safer way to think about C-A might be an indicator of how much of the
overall energy resides in the subwoofer range, beyond the reaches of the A-
weighting curve.