Converting Ratios to Decibels for Data Analysis

[mdshaver]

I am analyzing sets of data in ratio form (0 to 1). My interest at the moment is the differences between 2 sets of data, let's say set A and set B. Initially I thought I wanted to analyze the data all in the form of ratios so all my means and SDs are calculated based on those ratios. Again, my main interest is in the mean differences between set A and set B. Now, I realize that I need to convert my data to decibels for comparison to other work. What would the least time-consuming way of going about this be? Am I able to simply take the mean difference in ratio form and convert it to dB or do I need to convert all the original data to dB before taking the mean and calculating the differences? My other question is how do you convert ratios of 0 or 1 to decibels?

Thanks!


Mark

 

[Valkarie]

ing ratios from 0 to 1 as decibels can be done by taking the logarithm base 10 of the ratio and multiplying it by 10. For example, a ratio of 0.5 would be converted to -3dB, while a ratio of 1 would be converted to 0dB. If you want to calculate the difference between set A and set B in decibels, then you need to first convert each individual ratio to a decibel value and then take the difference between them. You do not need to convert all the original data to dB before taking the mean and calculating the differences since the mean and SDs are calculated based on ratios in this case. Hope this helps!