for speakers, wheelock sth-15s.
for horns, probably a federal signal 31x series explosion proof horn. probably the most expensive horn i’ve ran across too.
For electronic horns, I have to agree with the Simplex TrueAlert being the loudest. Something about the frequency seems to confuse your ears to where the noise is coming from, so it seems to just fill the air from all directions.
For mechanical horns, the Honeywell Q43-3A3CK1 takes the bacon, not to mention the fact that it makes a horrible rattling sound rather than a smooth tone!
The loudest electronic horn I’ve ever heard is the EST Integrity massive groan. Of course, they were in my elementary school, which had really narrow hallways and a really live, echoey acoustic to them. I’ve always thought ZNSs were rather loud, but they weren’t unbearable like the Integrity.
As far as mechanical horns, I’ve only heard 9838 horns in person. I’ve heard AC mech horns in my hometown’s HEB but only from a distance.
The loudest Fire Alarm I have ever heard? My 3 year old cousin…
JK.
Seriously though, I agree with Firefly, the Edwards Fire Horns win hands down…
Loudest horns I’ve ever heard would be the Federal/Standard 30A’s (aka “explosion proof” horns) that were in my elementary school prior to 1992. I’m sure that other AC horns like the Edwards Fire Horn, Simplex 40x0, and so forth give them a run for their money, but those are the only ones I’ve heard.
As far as electronics go, the Faraday MTL’s at the NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal get my vote. The U-MMT’s where I work now don’t seem nearly as loud and obnoxious, so I guess it’s a matter of the setting they use.
For speakers, I’d probably say the Wheelock bullhorn-type ones at my college stadium, which played the standard modern Simplex slow whoop. I didn’t hear them right from in there, but the fact that I could literally hear them from a mile away should say something.
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The campus apartment building I recently moved out of had TrueAlerts and Spectralert Advances on continuous. The alarm only went off once when I was home and the TrueAlert in my room made me jump. At that volume, the two horns sound virtually identical on continuous. I’d say those two are up there. Advances go up to 99 db per specs. I’ll also make a case for the Wheelock EHS-DL1. Those things are LOUD.
Based on typical horn placement, Commanders are loud and grating, if only because they are often installed in every room.
the 4030 in the mech room of my school
Haven’t heard all that many fire alarms, but I would say the loudest alarm I’ve ever heard was the Simplex 4040 with the double projector back at my middle school. Even with it taped over, it was still loud enough to wake the dead!!
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Electronic: Spectralert Advance (P2R)
Mechanical: Simplex 4040
Loudest electromechanical alarm: Space Age Electronics 2DCD. In my high school there were TWO before they were replaced by Wheelock Exceeders. One was in the former assessment center room which was turned into a special education classroom (a huge ass classroom for a small amount of students but I digress) and one that was in the Cosmetology hallway. When I was in the Cosmo rotation we had a fire alarm. There was a 9838 in the shop room itself but I could easily hear the 2DCD even WITH the door shut and with the 9838 blaring. It was almost deafening.
Loudest electronic horn: SpectrAlert Classic though I’m sure if I heard the Advanced I would change my mind. It was in my high school in the lecture hall. Even in Code-3, it was very screechy. That may have been the echo though.
I always wondered why the Space Age version was louder than the 9806, even though they are the same alarm. Does anyone have any idea?
That Classic must have been on high volume, because normally one can walk around them and not even have to have hearing protection. (I have mild Hyperacusis associated with my Aspergers Syndrome and they don’t seem to bother me.) It also could have been on FWR power, Specteralerts sound very scratchy on FWP.
I never heard a 9806 in person before but in junior high school, the elementary school next door to the junior high school had Federal Vibratone 450s with I-Strobes and when I was on the side of the building facing that school and they had a fire drill, I could hear the Vibratones so very clearly even with the windows closed.
Andrew also said that the 2DCDs at his middle school were much louder than the 9806s there. Maybe Simplex lowers the volume.
As for the SpectrAlert Classic, as I said, it might have been an echo. The room was triangle shaped so that it only had three walls.
And there was a 9838 in a stairwell behind the Teen Center that was louder than the other 9838s but it could have been an echo and the stairwell was a bit smaller than the other stairwells (though not to small) and the 9838 was in an alcove.
The loudest mechanical horn I’ve heard would be the Standard 30A. Those things were awful. Louder than the Standard 4-350’s (which were re-labeled Federal 350’s.)
The loudest electronic horn I’ve heard would have to be the Gentex Commander 2 on Code 3 mechanical. The CP U-MMT’s on Continuous Horn (but coded to Code 3 by the panel) were pretty loud too. I think the Commanders might be a bit louder, but the U-MMT’s sounded very raspy and unpleasant, making them more unbearable to me.
Not the Wheelock MT4. I was at Crossgates Mall in Albany, NY earlier this evening and the main mall system activated for a couple of minutes. Even on continuous, the place was remarkably quiet, even when standing under a horn. The Genesis horns in one of the stores were going off and I could hear those doing code 3 over the MT4s from quite a distance away.
I have to agree with the Commanders. The decibel rating might not be particularly high, but one of my schools had Commander 2s on mechanical code 3 and those things were grating, especially with every room having a horn.
My original post got deleted, so I’ll reiterate and elaborate on what I said.
Agreed with the 30A’s, which were the original horns in my elementary school. Luckily, they weren’t quite so loud from my kindergarten classroom, since there weren’t any in that corridor or the room itself, and we had a door leading right outside so we didn’t have to go into the hallway. (Plus, at the time I didn’t even know what that sound was or why we went outside when we heard it.) Then in first and second grade, I was in the newer wing which had the not-so-bad Wheelock V7001T’s. But when there was a fire drill during PE in second grade, it was brutal. Luckily for me, they replaced those horns with the comparatively quiet Edwards 892-1B’s later that year, right in time for me to move back into that wing for 3rd grade.
[quote] The CP U-MMT's on Continuous Horn (but coded to Code 3 by the panel) were pretty loud too. I think the Commanders might be a bit louder, but the U-MMT's sounded very raspy and unpleasant, making them more unbearable to me. [/quote]Do U-MMT’s and MTL’s sound raspier when they’re set to Continuous Horn? The MTL’s I heard in NYC’s Port Authority Bus Terminal (which were set to some type of slow march time code with intermittent extended pauses) sounded very unpleasantly raspy and loud - probably the loudest electronic horns I’ve heard. But the U-MMT’s at the library where I work now (which do code 3) sound considerably less grating. I wasn’t sure if they were panel coded or not (they seem to be in sync), but if the Code 3 setting on the individual horns is less raspy sounding, then that would explain the difference.
The coding doesn’t have anything to do with the raspiness of horns. The reason it sounds so raspy is because the fire alarm control panel is most likely outputting full wave rectified (FWR) current. FWR is basically voltage that has a pulsing current which can mess up mechanical horns and some electronic horns (Ex. SpectrAlert Classics) and the reason the other UMMt’s sounded smooth is because that panel out putted Filtered DC which doesn’t have the same waveform as FWR and is what makes those horns sound smooth. Filtered DC has a smooth waveform.
Not counting any of the fire alarms I see or hear in video clips, the loudest alarms I’ve heard in-person were the National Time horn/strobes (rebranded from Faraday) I grew up with throughout my grade school years. They were installed in the 1990s, replacing the original alarm systems from when the buildings first opened. I used to be terrified of fire drills growing up, and would cover my ears to drown out the continuous, droning noise that the alarms made.
The loudest fire alarm I’ve ever heard? I would have to go with the Wheelock ZNS. They are LOUD. I’ve encountered this fire alarm going off at least 5 or 6 times during my 3rd grade school year.
The loudest I ever heard? The Nugelec PAJ 30155, even tho I heard it from far away… My Sonos on 9V is ear piercing on its own.