The Who concert.
Ears rang for at least 2 days.

Never been near a plane or dragster.

Been to Rock concerts in my youth and my ears just rang. I, too, have tinnitus.

The loudest noise I have ever heard was a 572 Chevy engine on a dyno cell at a Goodguys car show. No mufflers whatsoever. I could feel the air pulses when the operator rapped the throttle. And it was loud!

The bomb that a low life chicken 5itt yellow bellied slime bag terrorist that I shall not name set off on April 19, 1995 at 9:01 AM. The bombing killed 168 innocent people.

Our building shook so hard I thought a 18 wheeler had somehow hit the building and we were several miles from downtown.

The good news it he was captured within an hour and we killed him back.

Yep. VIP viewing area. I got lucky enough to be chosen as a Launch Honoree. No trees in the way, though - it was a pretty clear shot to the pad. I was shocked at how loud it was.

Jack Bruce Band (with Ginger Baker, Bernie Worrell, Blues Saraceno, Gary 'Mudbone' Cooper, & Tom Goss) live at the Ritz, NYC - Feb. 9 1990.

Jack had 3 Hartke stacks as his bass rig :eek:

The volume was so high, it was messing with my inner ear and made me dizzy.

I like your style!
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Have to think back...being around the "dialing-in" of jet engines while in the military, is one. At that time, I was wearing ear plugs and muffs...but still was disorienting.
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The other is when I was a dumb-ass kid and fired my .41 mag at a varmint while in a dry 6' deep concrete canal - wearing absolutely no ear protection.
That stunned me for days and days and I think that that precipitated my hearing loss.

Inside a M 48 tank firing the main gun is pretty loud, but the concussion compounds the experience. It will blow your helmet way out of the main hatch if not strapped.Get the 50 cal and the smaller turret mounted machine gun going off along with the main gun and you really got some noise happening. But in my experience if you have reason to be making all that noise, The sound is the least of your worries. At the moment anyways.

A B 52 strike close at hand will rattle your ears and your whole body for that matter.

Been to some loud concerts too, but the most painful sound that comes to mind was a shreek from a telephone that went off on me once. Funny from such an inconspicuous source but it left my ear ringing for a couple,of days.

Cheers Richard

I can remember being about 10 years old when our next door neighbor, Chuck Jones, started his ’57 Chevy Bel Air up, uncorked, prior to racing it down at Lions Drag Strip. I was standing right next to the front fender. His driveway was between our two houses so it was surrounded by concrete on three sides, and we’re talking maybe only 12-15 feet between houses. After that, Dad said he didn’t want us boys standing near the car when he started it.

Poco in a noon-time concert at Santa Monica College. Loudest high note on a guitar I’d ever heard. The amphitheater was all concrete.

Or the time I went to Riverside Raceway to the Times Grand Prix. They were warming up a Ferrari in one of those small, one car, concrete garages they used to have there. The crowd was gathered around the back of the car as the mechanic razzed the throttle and the engine revved to about 7 or 8 grand. For some reason the Can Am cars with the big V-8’s just didn’t seem as musical to the ears.
Then there’s the time my brother and I took our boys to the NHRA Winter Nationals out at Pomona. Those Top Fuel and Funny cars are LOUD, even with muffs AND ear plugs on. We sat at about the 60 foot mark so we were plenty close to the starting line.
The lone F1 car they had up at Laguna Seca a couple years back was loud too. We sat in the front straight bleachers for that one. I’ll never forget that wail as it went up the backside to the Cork Screw turn. You could hear it loud and clear even on the front straight. How people could watch a whole field of those cars is beyond me.
I attribute my tinnitus to all the expansion chamber go-karts my brother and I fooled with in our youth. This was in the days before tracks had sound level restrictions.

I dated a bit of a screamer in college, so you know...my little F-4 Phantom.

Another one -
Went to the Fresno Drag Raceway back in '65...sitting on a drooping wire fence with 4 other buddies...about 20' downline from the starting line. We could have spit and hit those rigs...that close.
Those two fuelers fired off and we all fell back wards.
Every cavity in my body shook - scared the piss out of us. :eek:
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We relocated.

Kudzu Mazda DG-3 as raced in Camel Lights series.
The most piercing sound I ever heard......

Oh yeah. That too. I was with some friends were in a back yard screen house away from the main house sitting out a thunder storm. Lightning hit the roof and rolled down to a small grounded breaker box that was half way down a 4X4 post in one corner. The upper part of the post just exploded and showered us with splinters, causing the roof to sag. Scared the crap out of us for sure.

I've heard many of the same "loud" noises you guys are describing, from jet engines to big guns to rock concerts. F4's, B1's, B52's, etc. 120mm cannon on a Leopard II (an uncle retired as a colonel in the German army some years ago, commanding a tank unit. He used to take us out to the firing line on occasion). And yes, the rock concerts - Zeppelin and The Who in their heydays, when they seemed to have some ongoing dB contest or something. Stuff like that.

None of them even begin to hold a candle to a top fuel or funny car motor under load at full melt. Not even close. I've had the "pleasure" of standing between two of them at launch, having spun wrenches for a local funny car team a little bit back in the '80's (had the track mph record in Denver for all of one year, their only real "success", and I wasn't even there that weekend...). Just indescribable to anyone who has not experienced it.

AC/DC indoors on the "For Those About to Rock" tour. Most fun I ever regret

40 years ago I was watching a terrain following radar test of the B1 bomber in the dessert near Edwards. I could see this thing bobbing above the hills every so often and then all of a sudden this huge thing was right above me. It was so loud you could feel it in your chest and stomach.

TFR must be old technology.

at the Abbotsford Airshow a few years back!

Cheers
JB

The Four Wide Nationals in Charlotte. 4 Top fuel dragsters leaving at the same time. Sweet mercy, that's loud.

At the Fresno Drag Raceway I attended, the day was getting late, sun setting, and they ran off 4 at a time.
Unreal! :eek:

Much too close to a USN Mk42 5"/54 aboard a Knox class FF.

About the same were the noises I heard when working as a contractor at a US Army munitions R&D facility. That included testing a wide variety of gun propellants, as well as the expulsion charges for 155mm M864 & other large-cal artillery projectiles.

In my youth, I went to a lot of rock concerts and none of then (not even the Who at MSG) were close to the things that go boom. The closest were some of the top fuelers & "shake-n-bake" (as we called them) funny cars at Englishtown Raceway Park I heard, or more correctly "felt" - the pressure waves were so strong it was hard to breathe.

I've never been all that close to the business end of a jet engine, but I believe people when they tell me that produces very serious sound pressure levels.

When you're beyond dB and have to talk about overpressure levels, then you know it's serious.

As most of my friends know my hearing is used up, but there were special moments that stand out. Like standing between two 155 howitzers when both fired simultaneously. Calling in close air support right on top of your bunker position. Being in the launch control van 300 meters from the launcher for a Purshing II launch. Just hanging out around gas turbine generators for hours. Kind of made the race 911 motors on engine dyno seem tame, even without earplugs.
But the most pain I ever felt was from those G damn GTU Mazda RX7's, they truly hurt.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Dec. 1973 at the Spectrum in Philly. We were on the floor about 25 ft. from the bank of speakers to the left of the stage. I couldn't hear right for about 2 days after, but I did get laid by the young strumpet that I brought to the show.

Second or third row at an Aerosmith concert in the early 80's.
Tower Theater in Philly. Could not hear a thing for a few days after the concert.

Blue Cheer 1970. Followed by AC/DC..

I was at this resort in Playa Del Carmen when a natural gas explosion killed 7:

Tourists killed in hotel gas explosion - World News | IOL News | IOL.co.za

Ma with no earpro.....didn't hear crap other than incessant ringing for 4 days after that...

Wow, interesting stories.

VIN, I wasn't talking of high pitched screams ;)

I can't imagine anything louder than being about 50' away from the butt of an SST.

Keep it going.

OK, listen up. You people form a line here.....everybody gets a hundred rounds.....

Ma duce is loud.
Being near the center of a line of around 50 em' all going at once (no ear plugs) brought tears to my eyes. Good fun to shoot tho.

Something I noticed in this thread. two distinct groups of people, those choosing rock concerts and race car as loudest. and a select few that chose the sound of freedom as being loudest. 5" guns, missiles, tanks and such.

No judgement just an observation.

And a screaming orgasm or two. A sub-group of the sound of freedom group.

I haven't found the top fuel/truck & tractor pull events as loud as that B1. But then I was at least 50' away at the racing events.

Supposedly the loudest band in the world during their heyday. I am still sticking with the B1 with the burners on.

Cheers
JB

F-18s full afterburner takeoff.

The chemical plant I worked at had 1500lb steam. Very very hot and loud when it gets where it's not supposed to be. I worked in the boiler unit for 5 years and we did occasionally have leaks on the 1500. More common leaks were 600lb or even 150lb. Then there was the muffler for the vent gas generator. It would mess with yor heart rate if you stood to close to it. Or the 60-100 30, 60, 120, 300, horse motors in every pump house. Ear plugs and muffs sop.

I was standing about 50 feet from a cottonwood tree in my uncle Adam's back yard when it got hit by lightning. It knocked me down. I thought I was deaf for a while after that.

Yeah, F-18, sure, some guttural powerful low freq.

Try being next to powerful higher freq's

For me this was next to an F1 car being started and rev'd. Even while wearing ear-plugs and covering my ears, that engine hit some higher rpm and rang my skull like a bell.

Summer job years ago an American F-14 came over the worksite very low with power on. Have no idea if it was on afterburners but man was it loud! Was cool that the guy was banked over and I could see most of the cockpit from the ground.

Killing back is good.

Back in the 70's I was deep into the Adirondack outback on top of a 4000 foot peak. From behind me , seemingly out of nowhere a jet fighter blasted overhead. Seemed like he was right on top of me but it's hard to tell when you're face down under a backpack.

August 1972, press and family day cruise on the USS Enterprise from Alameda. Mid-afternoon airshow and my dad (press) and I were standing high up on the observation catwalk aft of the bridge, outside. A dark silhouette went past the ship from the stern, at eye level, very fast. BOOM! It was an F-4J Phantom, supersonic. As I watched the Phantom climb away vertically ahead of the ship an A-5 Vigilante came in from the bow, opposite direction, also supersonic. BOOM! The Vigi was closer in and it was louder. I was ten and didn't know whether to laugh or piss in my pants.