Yes, any difference between two sources of the same sound that are <= 3dBA is pretty much inaudable to humans from what I can remember.
Your right about it beign a bit confusing though. Percieved loudness is quite different to a dBA rating. If you have two sounds of different pitch that are the same dBA rating, the one with the higher pitch will usually sound louder to humans. Humans are more sensitve the higher the pitch [until you reach very high pitches].
So if the F-35 has a sound that has a lower pitch for example it probably will actually sound quieter than say an F-16 at a similar dBA.
general rule is +10dB for humans to perceive as "twice as loud" ... +3dB for twice the acoustic power, and +6dB for twice the amplitude (within tolerances...).
now, regarding pitches and frequencies and why some freq's sound louder at +3dB than others - that is because of the frequency response of the human ear, etc...it's not flat-response. a human isn't going to perceive 95dB at 25Hz and 4000Hz as the same (although his/her internals might say otherwise!
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i would find highly dubious if anyone can claim they can tell 2dB difference.
so the F-35 at 1000 ft will be louder due t the lower frequency and it will be harder to escape from. Up close the F-35 is within 2 dB of the F-22 and it sounds like a screech according to people who have heard them and because of the low pitch sound 50ft away the F-35 is like having your body ripped apart due to the high intensity low pitch sound waves.
harder to escape from what? a person on the ground hearing it?
again, human hearing isn't perfectly flat...so just because low (approaching sub-sonic) frequencies travel further than mid/high freq ranges, that doesn't mean a human will perceive it to be louder or notice it any sooner.
and we haven't even taken into account the most important factor: the extremely (relatively) slow speed of sound in atmosphere.
is there a document i missed about frequency response / output of this engine, versus other platforms? or how did this come to be the discussion?
so the F-35 at 1000 ft will be louder due t the lower frequency and it will be harder to escape from. Up close the F-35 is within 2 dB of the F-22 and it sounds like a screech according to people who have heard them and because of the low pitch sound 50ft away the F-35 is like having your body ripped apart due to the high intensity low pitch sound waves.
humans don't have built in FFT logic...i highly doubt most if not all humans can produce a spectrogram in their head while sitting 50ft from an f-35. a human is going to feel like his body is ripped apart at 50ft from any jet engine, not just the f-35.
im not sure what relevance any of this discussion has at all.
you're arguing lower frequencies in the human audible spectrum travel further - and they do ... and are you insinuating that as a result of that, and if the f-35 produces these low frequencies at a higher dB rating than other platforms, that it will travel further and somehow become a disadvantage?
if so, could you please detail to me how this might be noticeably different than current operating platforms? for example, if the f-35 engine does produce a waveform +2dB greater (say, at 40Hz), how could an enemy capitalize on this?
also, lower frequencies are omni-directional ... so you cannot pin-point them like you can mid-high range frequencies...so having one platform/engine louder at lower frequencies may not be a disadvantage as it may seem at first thought.
seems like creating a mountain of discussion out of a molehill of rather irrelevant information/specs...but im open to new insight.
edit: Falstaff replied as i was typing and pretty much hit it spot-on.