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I'm sure they make one. What is it called?

 
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it's called a decibelmeter

 
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well, in actuality, its called a microphone

 
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I want one that just has a little needle or display or whatever and you turn it on and it tells you how many decibels it's picking up. Do they make that?

 
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Buy a real time analyser. It's only $1000 for a cheap one.

 
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ironfist, radio shack sells a really cheap meter that isnt too accurate, but theres a website out there with the correction for it. get the meter and ill find you the website

 
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$1000.

 
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Cool, I like cheap radio shack stuff better than $1000 stuff.

 
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One of the radio shack microphones only goes to 98Db I believe. Make sure you get the right one.

 
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Get a termlab usb w/sensor mics

 
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The other one onle goes to 130db though. So its not much better.

 
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Ok, well 130dB is already ear damaging so I'm probably not going to be reading anything higher than that.

 
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audio control has that indash unit that will go to 150.

i used to have a coustic RTA that had the 170db upgrade...sold it for $215 though.

 
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This is the only one I saw online and I assume it's not the one you're talking about. It only goes up to 62db, anyway.

Btw, it says it reads from -20 up to 62dB. How can something be negative dB?

 
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if you're not looking for accuracy, i think the nokia 5100 cellphone has a built in SPL meter function.

i've never actually played with the 5100 though..

 
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That is not the meter you want. Thats for testing electricity. You want a sound one ....

RS Analog db Meter $39.99


RS Digital db Meter $49.99

 
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FWIW .... when I tried mine in my old car it was really inaccurate. I was at a local shop with a mic and compared them. My RS meter said 118db while the shop's meter said 128db. Thats a huge difference.

Where this thing is useful is getting a relative approximation. I use it on my Home Theater setup to get all 5 speakers to the same volume level for my surround sound. Works quite well for something like that. Plus I'm in the 80db range for testing like that, not pushing the limits of the device at 120+ db.

 
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The one I posted had a decibelmeter as one of its functions.

 
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Yes it has a db meter, but its a db meter that is measured via electrical input. Its not a meter that has a microphone and can measure spl in the air like the two I showed you. The one you picked is one that you could measure RCA outputs or something. It would behave just like level meters on a stereo similar to how an EQ has a display that bounces around w/ the music .....

 
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SInce nobody else has asked, why do you want your own?

 
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if youre gonna get one, get the analog one, also, i said before that i have a link somewhere for the corrections for it, and on the page also is a way to take it apart to mod it to read real readings.

aaaaaaaaalso
the rs meter is good for using it as a ghetto RTA, not as an spl meter

 
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This is the corrected values for 1/6 octave from 10Hz to 160Hz and 1/3 octave after that.
10Hz +20.5
11Hz +18.0
12.5Hz +16.5
14Hz +13.5
16Hz +11.5
19Hz +8.0
20Hz +7.5
22Hz +6.5
25Hz +5.0
28Hz +4.0
31.5Hz +3.0
36Hz +2.5
40Hz +2.5
45Hz +2.0
50Hz +1.5
56Hz +1.5
63Hz +1.5
71Hz +1.5
80Hz +1.5
89Hz +1.5
100Hz +2.0
111Hz +1.0
125Hz +0.5
142.5Hz +0.5
160Hz -0.5

200Hz -0.5
250Hz +0.5
315Hz -0.5
400Hz 0.0
500Hz -0.5
630Hz 0.0
800Hz 0.0
1.0KHz 0.0
1.25Khz 0.0
1.6KHz -0.5

2.0Khz -1.5
2.5Khz -1.5
3.15Khz -1.5
4.0KHz -2.0
5.0KHz -2.0
6.3KHz -2.0
8.0KHz -2.0
10Khz -1.0
12.5KHz +0.5
16KHz 0.0
20KHz +1.0

 
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It would be cool if they made a gauge that was a decibel meter that you could mount by the ciggarette lighter or something, and then it would have a little microphone that you could mount somewhere, too. Then you could see at any given time how loud your music was. It would "redline" at the point where the sound becomes damaging to your ears (what is it, like 120 or 130dB or something?)

 
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If I did that it might discourage me from turning it up so loud, so NO THANK YOU!

 
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That meter has a DC in ..... I'm sure you could rig it up without much hastle.

 
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yeah, that is what I use it for...it is pretty consistent with the same tone played at the same frequency...for example, I can play a tone at 130hrtz with the volume at 15 and it will always be at 93-94 dbs as long as I don't adjust any eq settings.

 
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Is there any way to get the meter to read higher than 130db? Does the switch use resistors or something that you can swap out to change the range?

 
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So wait will the meters only read one tone? You can't just put them in front of a speaker playing regular music?

 
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It reads a big chunk of tones in the audible range...like from 30-8000hrtz...something like that. So yes, you can use music.

 
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The meter takes in everything. But if your just playing a specific freq .... then thats how much the meter is off.