New Environmental Noise Meter

Castle Group of Scarborough 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 straightforward,” 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 two 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.