Know your Levels!

May 05, 2014

Tuesday Tech Tip

Some common voltages and levels to know

In audio, we frequently see many voltages and levels referenced in dBu or dBV that we should all know. Below is a short list of the most common levels and their voltages that they represent that we highly recommend you memorize. These levels will help you to optimize the setting of your system processors and effects units by understanding what levels are going into and out of different pieces of gear.

Some of these are the Nominal Operating Levels of gear, while others are the Sensitivities of Amplifiers (Level required for full output), and others are often stated in spec sheets as the maximum output levels of common pieces of gear. These numbers have been rounded to the nearest 100th of a volt or 10th of a dBu to reflect the commonly seen numbers on specification sheets of audio gear.

dBu Volts dBV

Common Professional Levels

0 dBu .775 Volts -2.214 dBV

+4 dBu 1.23 Volts 1.786 dBV

+5.2 dBu 1.4 Volts 2.923 dBV

+18 dBu 6.16 Volts 15.786 dBV

+22 dBu 9.76 Volts 19.786 dBV

+24 dBu 12.28 Volts 21.786 dBV

Common Consumer Level

-7.8 dBu .32 Volts -10 dBV

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