Hector Martin

In pop science getting things wrong: "Sperm whales are the loudest animal on Earth at 236 dB! That's enough to kill you!" Well, no. Sound pressure is measured differently in water and in air. Subtract ~61 dB for the equivalent SPL in air, 175 dB (same acoustic energy). And...

... if you're listening from outside the water, that's another ~30 dB loss from the impedance mismatch. Now you're at 145 dB. Still ear-damage level, right? Except sperm whales communicate in clicks which last 100 microseconds. Party balloons can produce > 160 dB impulses.

So you should be more worried about hearing damage from popping party balloons than from being outside the water next to a sperm whale. Also, howler monkeys blast out ~140 dB in air, *continuously*, which is a hell of a lot more impressive (especially per size), and dangerous.

Remember kids, it is not okay to read a research paper and go "number big, bigger number impressive, must write article" if you don't actually understand the subject matter.

Any recommendations for reading about how volume works?

From a scientific perspective, or from an audio engineering perspective? For the former I would say just Google it, but for the latter I might have some specific things to recommend if you want to go into details about mixing and such.