"The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy notes that Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally held to be not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert-goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the stage, whilst the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet.

Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.

Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitation treaties."

>The Kiss concert in Ottawa was, says David, "17,000 times louder and ten trillion times more powerful than a heartbeat."

Can anybody convert this to libraries of congress for me? Or perhaps elephants standing on a postage stamp?

"that's roughly the sound of the volcano that erupted in Karakatau, Indonesia in 1883 and was heard 3,000 miles away. In these drag races, the sound is trapped in the automobile."

Wrong. This all depends on how far are you standing from the sound source. Probably the car audio is much less powerful than the volcano, only the mic is closer.

Now I want to go and find one of these drag events, so I can experience it. Further curious I was searching and found this chart...not sure of the accuracy. http://www.makeitlouder.com/Decibel%20Level%20Chart.txt

I have an associate who's big into these competitions. I've never checked one out, a mutual friend did though. He said it freaked him out, that the force of sound was so powerful he felt like he couldn't breath.

I was at kiss within the last two weeks and you didn't hear the music, you felt it as your hearing slowly failed. I forgot to bring earplugs, something I would never recommend, and I could hear not a thing at the end of the concert.

Thinking of something so loud that it makes objects move.... nope.

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This seems... hazardous.

Odd sport the "dB drag racing". Made me remember of this Gavras video http://vimeo.com/9357434

First thought was: "10 trillion heartbeats?"

My first thought when I saw that headline:

Prejudice

Doesn't that permanently damage the hearing?

As someone who has suffered from Tinnitus for the last ten years, I found this article "disheartening," to say the least. I attribute my Tinnitus to either a Ted Nugent concert in Indianapolis when I was in my teens, or to a firecracker going off near me (again, a stupid teenage incident), or a couple of years mowing lawns to make extra money. In any event, if I had it to do over, I'd avoid all situations in which there could be loud noises and I wouldn't go near one of the cars described in this article, let alone stick my head in the window. Take care of your hearing because once you get Tinnitus, there's no going back. My is so bad that if someone could provide me with a permanent cure, I'd write them a check for $10,000 on the spot just to make this constant ringing go away.