Sheffield Arena Sound System

[BrianC]

The volume of the sound system tonight was totally unacceptable and possibly illegal. Despite telling security that it was too loud twice. It took until well into the first period before it was rectified.
My ears are still ringing and if they are the same in the morning I will need to consider what to do.
Does anybody know how I can make a claim against the arena or the Steelers?

[Jayboy]

I completely agree the sound in the arena tonight was horrendous and I saw several of the little packets of green ear plugs being handed to people.. this is not a new problem, it has happened before but this was the first time ive seen it this season... it was awful

[Necoll]

I don’t know how accurate the sound meter in my Apple Watch is, but it shows a peak of 111 decibels for the time at the arena tonight.
I was monitoring the display in the intro time. At that time, the music was consistently between 95 and 100 dB. Then, when Simmsey ‘shouted’, it increased to over 100 dB. The peak whilst I was looking was 106 dB, but the watch picked up 111dB some time in the 19:00 to 20:00 hour.

[Brian]

My friend in the next seat showed me it was 109 decibels on his apple watch when Simmsy announced Steeler Dan in the intro. I wrapped my scarf round my head. Some young kids wear earphones but many don't.

[smbmetal]

That’s as loud as some Heavy Metal gigs I’ve been to over the years.

I think I’d start with an email to the Steelers office which can be found here:

https://www.sheffieldsteelers.co.uk/contact-2/

Perhaps reference this thread/topic to show there’s other people with the same concern?

[stans lad]

Thank you for bringing this subject up on here, I didn't know if it was just me.
We were talking with some friends when the teams were introduced onto the ice for the warm up and the sudden sharp increase in the volume startled us all.
I also agree with the fact that it was the same when the teams were introduced into the ice and especially when the starting six for the Steelers was announced,
In fact it was that loud I had to put my fingers in my ears.
Even my wife had ringing in her ears, like we had been to a concert.
I recorded a high of 113 decibels on my Apple phone.
Not a pleasant experience.

[mark]

The overall responsibility lies with the Arena, there are set levels that should not be breached and there should be a monitoring system that indicates when those limits have been reached so the first question is were those levels reached ?, as good as the apple watch is, it is not a calibrated device. If it is established that the sound levels were too high then was it operator error, system error or deliberate action.

A properly designed system should first warn the user that permitted levels have been reached and then either cut off the system or reduce the output accordingly, I'm not sure what is in place these days. I do know that in the past the arena employee who was on the board was asked by Simms for more volume but the employee knew it was already at the limit so they moved up a fader that had no effect, but it was enough to fool Simms at the time.

It's also not just the overall level but the EQ settings on the mic input, you can really make a voice seem louder by boosting certain frequencies, maybe someone altered them ?.

The attendances Boxing Day and yesterday were close enough not to have any real impact.

And before anyone claims the complaints are linked to the final score, the complaints were coming in not long after the start of the game.

[Jayboy]

Everybody around us in our block and many in the block below us were complaining from the warm up onwards and the intros got even louder!! and as I said above the stewards were 100% handing out packets of ear plugs the the complainers. So from that anecdotal evidence only I have no doubt the arena was aware of at the very least a problem.

[smbmetal]

Appreciate that it’s the arena’s issue to resolve, however, for me, a simple club statement along the lines of, they recognise there is/was an issue with the PA system volume at recent games and are working either the arena’s Management to correct it would go a long way I think.

[Bryan]

I’ve done work on annoyance and sound levels. A dBa (level of sound for at least 10% of time) of 80 is the level at which compensation is legally available. Remember too that the decibel scale is logarithmic. This means that an increase in sound level of 10 dB is twice as loud. So an increase from 80 to over 100 is FOUR times as loud as is considered dangerous..
We know that Simms loves the sound of his own voice but he needs to be more sensible. Everyone was complaining around us last night. STOP IT !