Very loud cabin in 737-9 Max

[walterjay]

Just finished a flight on the Max. It had the loudest cabin of any aircraft that I have ever been on. You had to pretty much shout to be heard. It was pretty awful. I think the flight attendants would be at risk of hearing damage from the noise. I don't remember other planes being so loud.
BTW Sea-Tac is really a mess.

 

[billt460]

Where were you seated?

 

[02SE]

Yeah, they're pretty loud when the door plugs blow out.

 

[mk378]

Were all doors and windows in place?

 

[4WD]

Oh, this is going to be a grownup thread …
Have flown a dozen or more of them and never considered them loud …

 

[fdcg27]

Unless you've ridden in the last few rows of a DC-9 or MD80, you don't know loud.
We've flown on a couple of MAX-8s and they seemed pretty normal in sound level.

 

[walterjay]

Where were you seated?

Right up front. First class row 4.

 

[Zee09]

I guess I'm the only one here that has sympathy for the self absorbed filthy rotten rich.....
You people should be ashamed of yourselves.

 

[walterjay]

I guess I'm the only one here that has sympathy for the self absorbed filthy rotten rich.....
You people should be ashamed of yourselves.

Oh come on Jimmy...you would never set your butt in steerage.

 

[Danh]

I flew on an A340-300 and it was really uncomfortable. I blame the airframer.

 

[fdcg27]

I flew on an A340-300 and it was really uncomfortable. I blame the airframer.

We flew on an A340-300 last summer and thought it was pretty nice. Wanted to grab a flight on one before they're gone.
The two seats only on the windows is a nice feature shared with the A330.

 

[Robster]

I flew on the 737-Max early after their initial appearance (before the two crashes); my experience was quite different than yours. I considered it one of the quietest flights (for a narrow body) I'd experienced at that time. Since then, I've flown to Australia and back on a 787 Dreamliner--I now consider that aircraft to be the quietest one I've experienced so far.

 

[edyvw]

Flew this spring a lot on MAX8 and MAX9, super quiet.
Maybe something is missing?

 

[yowps3]

A380 is the only plane I've flown that actually had very low noise levels. Significantly quieting further following lift off when the landing gear is retracted.

 

[Astro14]

I’ve had several flights on the Max, I actually thought they were quieter than a regular 737.

Certainly the seat that you choose determines the noise level, it’s not uniform throughout the cabin.

Personally, I prefer an exit row, not only because it offers the most legroom, but that is the most survivable part of the aircraft.

On a 737, the exit row is actually slightly louder, because of your proximity to the engines. For that, I recommend a good set of noise canceling headphones.

The Bose, for example, work wonderfully.

 

[Cujet]

I've done aircraft interior sound level surveys. Some key points:

1) Altitude matters, the lower the altitude, the louder.
2) Pressurization matters too. The lower the cabin pressure the quieter.
3) Speed matters, of course faster is louder.
4) Seat location matters. Low frequency sounds form standing waves at specific locations under specific conditions. Passengers will notice a roaring sound in some seats and some configurations. Moving to a nearby seat can change the experience.
5) The difference between M 0.80 (about as slow as we can go) and M 0.92 is about 6db at FL400. About 3-4db at FL470
6) High frequency sounds are fairly easy to damp out, using weighted layers (insulation, like you might see on a diswasher) but low frequency sounds come through no matter what. There is a reason many specifications are Db (A)

 

[Astro14]

You should, perhaps, point out, that db is a logarithmic scale, so a 3 db increase is twice as loud. 6 db four times as loud.

Dramatic differences based on speed.

So, perhaps the Max on which the OP was flying was flying near top speed.

 

[Cujet]

You should, perhaps, point out, that db is a logarithmic scale, so a 3 db increase is twice as loud. 6 db four times as loud.

3Db is a twice the sound pressure, think of it as twice the wattage driving a speaker. But to us, it is not twice as loud. In my experience it takes about a 9-10Db increase for a typical person to say it's twice as loud. Some people are more sensitive. My old boss was remarkably sensitive to cabin noise. He was hearing the under-floor IRU's 540HZ sound while in flight, we could only hear 'em on the ground.

He could notice a 2Db difference and was thankful for the minor sound level reductions we achieved. I could not discern 2Db at all.

We used weighted insulation everywhere even under the carpet. And cloth seat, side panel and headliner coverings. It did a wonderful job absorbing high frequency sounds.

 

[y_p_w]

You should, perhaps, point out, that db is a logarithmic scale, so a 3 db increase is twice as loud. 6 db four times as loud.

Dramatic differences based on speed.

So, perhaps the Max on which the OP was flying was flying near top speed.

"Loudness" as a perception of noise level isn't linear though. However, using decibels as a scale is somewhat arbitrary, and not everyone is going to perceive sound level quite the same.

 

[Exhaustgases]

Did it have any of the clunking banging etc. that the 757 had?