We have a unit for that. It's dBm and very easy to grasp. 0 dBm is 1 mW, every 10 dBm is an order of magnitude more (10 dBm = 10 mW).

dB is only confusing if people omit which quantities they are relating. If it's clear like in the case of dBm which relate to 1 mW, it's an awesome tool.

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jfengel 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately, people omit the quantities all the time. Domain experts assume it when talking to each other, and non-experts repeat it without knowing that it refers to anything at all. (I still don't really know what it means for a sound to have "decibels".)

	▲	jononor 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		When referring to sound in the physical world, "decibel" mean dB SPL (sound pressure level). Which is defined as the ratio to the smallest perceivable sound pressure level. Unfortunately that is still a bit underspecified, it may be measured with a frequency weighting like A weighting. And then there is the integration time or other temporal aggregation, but that is separate from decibel/log. When in analog audio, it usually means dbV, relative to a reference voltage. And in digital audio, usually dBFS - relative to the maximum amplitude that can be represented.

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7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

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