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> I don't see a practical reason why dB's normal use can't have been covered by normal prefixes

Because instead of numbers going like 1, 10, 100, 1k, 10k, 100k, 1M, 10M, 100M, 1G, and so on when using prefixes, we get a much more smoother numbers of 0 dB, 10 dB, 20 dB, 30 dB, 40 dB, 50 dB, 60 dB, 70 dB, 80 dB, 90 dB. You can see the the number for the dB get bigger, while when using prefixes the numbers get bigger two times in a row and then go back to smaller. With dB you usually just see a number from 0 to around +/- 100 or so. You can plot dB nicely as an axis of a chart and then see the slope of a curve in so many dB per decade.

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tuetuopay 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> You can see the the number for the dB get bigger, while when using prefixes the numbers get bigger two times in a row and then go back to smaller

Interesting, I don't have any issues with that, and I see the numbers getting bigger and bigger no problemo. Perhaps it's an issue of metric/imperial, as I grew up in a metric country: I have a mental visual model of decades, while dB feels linear. The opposite is likely true e.g. in the US.

> You can plot dB nicely as an axis of a chart

Nothing prevents you from putting the decimal scale on a chart. As a matter of fact, many engineering fields do precisely that. One example that comes to mind are components datasheets: a lot is in log scales, but explicitly so, by putting the 1-10-100 numbers with naught-k-M-G. It's explicitly logarithmic.

	▲	em3rgent0rdr a day ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, log scales are done quite often with SI prefixes for absolute (non-ratio) data that doesn't have a standard reference (which is the case for component datasheets). But dB can be more convenient when you want to present logarithmically-varying ratios, particularly for gain or attenuation (which are relative to unity) or when you have a commonly-accepted reference of your absolute data that is a useful standard to compare against. This gives your 0-point typically at the top or bottom of the axis a standard meaning across all graphs in a particular domain, and then datapoints typically have about a couple significant digits above the "." of the dB datapoint that you generally are interested in. I grew up in a metric country too, but still it is much easier to speak of 0 to 100 or so of decibels with decades of power being in increments of 10 rather than having to say 10, 100, 1k, 10k, 100k, 1M, 10M, 100M, 1G, 10G, etc of gain or 100m, 10m, 1m, 100u, 10u, 1u, 100n, 10n, 1n, 100p, etc of attenuation. Especially when gains or attenuations would be multiplied, then decibel makes it really easy to just add and or subtract in decibels. For an example, a signal with 10M of gain (or that is 10M times some reference) that gets passed through 100m attenuation would result in a 1M signal (which takes my brain some fiddling with those letters and numbers), but in decibel we are just dealing with simple addition & subtraction: 70 dB minus 10 dB equals 60 dB.

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viraptor 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Logarithmic axes exist outside of dB and are just fine. They work for any unit too, so log(bytes) for example is ok. We don't specifically need dB for it.