My friend and I were talking about power requirements in loudspeaker design and the fact that almost all of the power is required to drive the woofers and move lots of air.
Then he asked “do basses exert more energy talking or singing than sopranos?”
Or put another way, does a lower frequency voice need more power (energy) to achieve the same volume as a high voice?
Uhh, for a standard wave, higher frequency means more energy at the same RMS amplitude. Might it just be that humans are less sensitive to bass notes (and so need louder speakers)?
People with louder voices would definitely expend more, at least, although I’m guessing the human voicebox is inefficient enough in the first place it wouldn’t be significant.
It’s a function of amplitude AND frequency.