Loudest Noise that You Have Ever Heard
 

At 59 yrs my hearing is slowly but surely failing. I have tinnitus and hearing loss. I have never listened to loud music but have worked using power tools, compressors, jackhammers and the usual electric tools since I was a kid and I am not surprised with my condition.

The loudest noise that I have been exposed to happened many years ago. We had a job at JFK airport working on the Int'l Arrivals Building back in the late '80's early '90's. I would make deliveries for the shop to the jobsite and had to enter the tarmac under escort from the PA police. They would escort us on service roads through the airport and had to cross runways to get to the terminal.

One day I arrived at the airport about 1:00pm. The Concorde was fully operating back then and had a scheduled departure time of 1 pm. We got to a runway crossing and there it was awaiting to take off....the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life, the SST.

Oh my GOD!!!! Upon take off the sound was beyond deafening, every molecule in my body was vibrating that I thought I would explode. It literally made me sick it was so loud. The PA cop had on a headset and all I could do was cover my ears with my hands. It was truly deafening, so much so I lost temporarily lost some hearing and it felt like I was getting brain zaps. Horrible experience.

How about you?

Vince Neil opening for Van Halen in the 7th row at Merriweather in 1992 or 1993. Ears rung for 2 days.

2nd was a band that opened for the White Stripes, they only had a bass guitar and drums, no guitar. It was so loud my eyes shook.

I've been to some car races and get earplugs and can take a few minutes without, but those shows stand out.

What?

We were cleaning out a building that I moved my biz into , and found a stash of train horns. I said, " lets push some air through it with a blow gun and see what it sounds like "

I was in a bar/club with a live band about 2' from the speakers. That was too loud. I knew it was too loud and wanted to move, but I was with a large group. I'm pretty sure the bulk of the tinnitis that I have today is from that night.

Some power tool stuff that I've dealt with has been piercing despite covering your ears. I started wearing my shooting ear muffs when I worked with power tools in the garage.

Guns are pretty loud too.

I saw the shuttle launch once. I know it's REALLY loud, but I was about 11-12 miles away, so it was mostly just a low rumble from my vantage point.

ive been next to top fuel dragsters at full song.

Many years ago there was a large airshow at Brown Field just south of San Diego and they had a SST that was giving 1 hour rides out to sea and back again. I remember seeing it take off and when it was about even with the edge of the Pacific Ocean it went to full power which the sound was, as you said huge. It seemed to go on for 5 minutes or so until it disappeared. That was a long and loud sound.

A short and tremendously loud sound was a US Navy A5 Vigilante doing a flight deck level full speed (1300 + knots) fly by for an air show when I was on the CVA(N) 65. The sonic boom and shock wave actually made some flight deck viewers fall over! I was in the #1 engine room and the machinery actually shook!

Did you see this one today? I bet :25 is pretty loud.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BUREX8aFbMs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Super modified pulling tractor with 4 supercharged 600 ci Rodeck big blocks, screaming for about 30 seconds at 10,000 RPMs, and standing near the sidelines.

Standing behind the bleach box when 2 funny cars launched. Shook me right to the quick, you can feel the concussion in your chest.

MK38 Naval Gun Fire Control system 16", 50 caliber guns from inside turret 1. Sounded like Thor hit the side of the ship with his hammer. It was the first time the guns were fired in over 30 years. Wasn't sure if it was a normal sound or something went wrong. Then I saw guys cheering and realized all was well. Except for my ears. We only had on sound-powered phones, which is basically nothing. Then later, we'd go topside with hearing protection to watch from Spot 3. It was surreal. The sound was deafening. And the blast was amazing.

My wife, when I brought home my 62 Mercury without telling her...

1981 while stationed at Alconbury RAF, UK, I was working in the phase dock about mid-runway when the SR-71 Blackbird took off. It was late at night and dead quiet before he hit those afterburners. It rattled the hanger like an earthquake.

1982 Joan Jett live at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara. Ears rang for days.

Space Shuttle launch. Even from ~3 miles away, my shirt sleeves were vibrating from the sound.

Also, when I worked for McDonnell Douglas a long time ago, a pilot in an F4 Phantom decided to do a low pass over our facility. I literally thought the world was coming to an end. At least I knew the Shuttle was launching!!

Top Fuel dragster. It sucks the air out of your chest.

Explosions Rock Texas Chemical Plant, Killing 3 - NYTimes.com
I was there that day. Bunch of people had eardrums burst from the shock wave.

+1 Those F4's where heavy and loud. I worked in a F4C Phantom squadron for two years. When they shipped out and the F5E's moved in it felt quiet as a library.

One rocket next to the hooch ..

Steam blow-off valve at Southern Company power plant. Access at all times to double hearing protection was required while working on the roof(plugs and muffs), and you had to immeadiately evacuate the roof when it went--regardless of distance from the valve. Sounded like a jet in a tunnel.

Good point, another of my loudest was not a top fuel dragster, but it was some sort of big block rail type dragster with the same sort of exhaust. I was standing next to it when they started it up. It was pretty cool, then the guy goosed it to run it down to where they had the tractor trailer parked at the other end of the parking lot. When he goosed the gas, it felt like a someone hit me in the torso with something really big. It was pretty impressive.

Shuttle launch is number one followed by a full afterburner take off of a B1B

I've played in rock bands with drums on one side and Marshalls on the other, and I've driven race cars, but I've also worked for a railroad in their test shed where they hook a locomotive up to a load box and let it run and load in notch 8 for a few hours. It can be quite deafening. And yeah, those damn horns too...

+1

Raceway Park @ Englishtown, NJ - I think I was 8 or 9 years old.

We had seats that were damned near trackside. The fuelies were loud but the jet dragsters were downright insane. 30+ years later I still remember the feeling in my chest as those things went by!

Not to mention the idiot who did an exhibition run in one of these things:

http://truckphoto.net/triple-engine-...-jet-truck.jpg

Loudest for me too. Earmuffs over earplugs and it's still deafening.

A crazy old bastard called Bruce Hannan fired a 12 gauge from slightly behind me. My left ear hasn't been the same since.

5"/54 Cannon off the deck of the USS Chandler DDG-996. and the SM2 Missiles we launched. pretty much a tie for freaking loud.

lots of concerts as a stagehand.... did a truss spot call for blink 182 where i was 15 feet from the pyro,1 pound black powder concussion charges- loud

had a sound guy miss patch phantom power (48v dc) to the input of a sub amp- sounded like the theater roof was dropped- wielded the output transformer of the amp open and melted the voice coils of three of the four 18"drivers in the cabinet-

Same here, USS Missouri, Northern Arabian Gulf 1991, I was there helping the CIWS techs for two days. The loudest sustained noise was definitely CIWS Live fire on a TDU shoot, as deck safety observer. 77 rounds a second of 20MM for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 6 seconds. That noise sucks the air out of your chest and makes all your body hair stick out.

I'm so jealous that you got to see the launch from the VIP area. I understand that the VIP area has trees in the way so you don't see the shuttle until after lift of, but still, I suspect it's at least an order of magnitude more impressive than from 12 miles away and that's pretty impressive.

Passenger seat of car. Windows closed except driver's. Pal needed to kill a road sign in the country with a 357 magnum. Did not want to stick the gun out too far as someone might see him.

Back in high school in 1969, four of us were riding around town in a VW Beetle on Halloween night launching M-80s out the window with a sling shot. I was driving, the guy in the passenger seat was loading and launching them while one of the guys in the back seat was lighting them. Well, one was aimed a little high and hit the top of the window sill above the door bouncing back and under one of the seats. All the other guys knew what was going on and put their hands over their ears. All I remember is hearing "Oh $hi#" while I had both hands on the steering wheel. Then the thing went off and I could not hear anything for a while. The car filled with white smoke and it was all I could do to get the Bug stopped and off the road.

B1 at full song. Louder than any concert I have been to. The SR-71 was coming in not going out so I can't say if it would have been louder.

8" Howitzers when I was in the Corps.

Steam Blows when I was working in India. You use high pressure steam released at intervals to scour the inside of pipes. The flow exit flow is sonic.

<iframe width="960" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kg7Ikk_VxJ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Close second was a ruptured over pressure disc on a Natural Gas Line when I was working in Pakistan. I left the site that day. Not worth my life. The area was hazy from unmixed natural gas!

Loudest sound I heard, but not too loud where I heard it:

<iframe width="960" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Mh2LoNvgWOU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Of course, we were about 75 miles away!

When I was pretty young we lived near Plant 42, not too far from the runway and as the SR-71 took off it would fly almost directly overhead and the sound used to scare the crap outta me as a little kid. My mom probably described it best when she said it sounded like "the sky splitting open." Probably one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard. Maybe some rock concerts I've been to might top it, I don't know...it certainly had the biggest effect on me.

F1 at Indy was pretty loud, too.

I work at plant 42, haha. also forgot...my old roommate is a rocket scientist for NASA. he took me out to Edwards (to their remote location away from the base) to let me observe some rocket tests. that was pretty loud, too.

Numerous jet flyovers, but one that still resonates me was several years ago, sitting a couple feet from Jack White's amps when he ripped through an extended version of "Screwdriver".

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

lightning strike about fifteen feet away from me, shock and awe!