At 30,000 feet, background noise in airplane cabins can make it tough to hear music or movies without cranking the volume -- and distorting the sound on that dramatic climax of "Zoolander." ...

At times, the noise from bikes and cars with booming stereos has been so bad he couldn’t hear his television. “It’s literally an invasion into your house,” Bamberger said.

Most people notice changes in noise when the level rises or drops by three decibels. An increase of every 10 decibels sounds like a doubling of noise - i.e., 70 sounds twice as loud as 60.

To find out exactly how noisy some restaurants get, we bought hand-held sound-level meters and headed to 10 Baltimore area favorites on a recent Friday and Saturday night. We selected places where … ...

BROOKLYN neighborhoods are abuzz with noise complaints, after a push by the Bloomberg administration to curb construction din and loud music stalled in the City Council. In the first six months of ...