New Environmental Noise Meter offer Simplified Sound Measurement

Castle Group of Scarborough, UK, has launched a brand new sound meter, the SONUS E dedicated to environmental noise measurements. The interesting thing about this meter is the fact that it is actually quite straight forward and is borne of a recent study showing that the majority of environmental noise tasks only ever need three things!

According to the study compiled by Chris Gilbert (MIOA) and Simon Bull (MIOA), 90% of all environmental noise measurement tasks can be completed using only three measurement parameters; LAeq (Equivalent Sound Level), L90 (Sound level exceeded for 90% of the time) and LAmax (Maximum Sound Pressure Level). “This makes the whole process of environmental measurements a lot more accessible and more straight-forward,” said Simon Bull, one of the co-authors.

Simon also stated, “It appears that most people are using equipment that is expensive, over-complicated, power-hungry and data-intensive, when it is absolutely not needed.” He continued, “The traditional approach has always been to take a powerful sound meter and put it in a weatherproof box. This leads to increased battery requirements which often mean a very heavy box that pulls your arms out of their sockets just getting it onto site!”

Castle Group have released the new SONUS E to make the most of this new research, with a single lead-acid battery lasting over a week and a total system weight of less than 5.5kg. Robert Hawksworth, head of the development team at Castle said, “There is a clear need for something a little simple in the field of environmental noise measurements, so we have designed the SONUS E and its weatherproof housing to suit. Most existing kits weigh in at between 15kg and 20kg, so this is a definite improvement here!”

The SONUS E will measure down to 22dB and will give 2 parallel measurements, which is required in some environmental standards. The parameters measured include Leq, LE, Lmax, L10, L90 and one user defined Ln value and the data-logging is capable of taking a measurement every one second as well as overall levels.