People living in cities are regularly exposed (against their will) to noise above 85 decibels from sources like traffic, subways, industrial activity, and airports. That’s enough to cause significant hearing loss over time.

5 City Noises You Never Have To Hear Again

• Traffic. Image via Flickr by http://www.petsadviser.com.
• Neighbor’s Music. Does your neighbor’s loud music and friends keep you awake and interrupt your other activities?
• Construction Work.
• Sirens & Alarms.
• Noisy Nightclubs.

New York city guide

• Sirens and traffic. Everywhere you go in New York, the classic soundmarks are huge amounts of traffic noise, and emergency sirens blaring through the sky.
• The New York subway.
• The sidewalks are alive!
• Multicultural New York.
• Grand Central station.
• The High Line.
• Times Square.
• Sound art.

In film and media production, ambient sound is a standard term that denotes the site-specific background sound component providing locational atmospheres and spatial information of public places.

Traffic is the single most important contributor to background noise levels inmost urban areas. Trucks, buses, and trams are much louder than other vehicles.

Ambient sound (AKA ambient audio, ambience, atmosphere, atmos or background noise) means the background sounds which are present in a scene or location. Common ambient sounds include wind, water, birds, crowds, office noises, traffic, etc.

Asynchronous sound is audio that doesn’t match up with visuals. Discover clever ways to introduce asynchronous sound into your next film project. When sound doesn’t match a film’s visuals, it’s asynchronous.

By contrast, regions like Yellowstone National Park have background noise levels down at around 20 decibels, which is about as hushed as things were before European colonization.

CAUSES OF NOISE POLLUTION

• Traffic noise. Traffic noise accounts for most polluting noise in cities.
• Air traffic noise.
• Construction sites.
• Catering and night life.
• Animals.
• Physical.
• Psychological.
• Sleep and behavioural disorders.

In New York City garbage is placed at the curb for pickup. It gets rancid fast in the summer heat. This is the most prominent odor you’ll detect.

Rearrange the furniture in your room. Sometimes moving the furniture around in your current room can significantly reduce noise pollution at night.

One way to treat equipment noise is to reduce the sound at it’s source. Vibra Block® is a premium, industrial grade sound deadening material. Vibra Block® is well-suited for HVAC noise reduction because it’s designed to effectively dampen sound on any type of steel – including galvanized steel, stainless steel, plated steel and more. Vibra Block® can also be applied to the ductwork itself.

Noise is unwanted sound judged to be unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, noise is indistinguishable from sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arises when the brain receives and perceives a sound.

The sounds associated with cities – traffic, honking, construction – have long been linked to sleeplessness, stress, increased learning impairments in children and higher risk of hypertension and…