Find Your Quiet Place

Like Yelp, But For Noise

SoundPrint measures how loud places really are — restaurants, bars, cafés, stores, gyms, offices, any venue — so you can pick the ones where you can actually hear the person across the table — and avoid the noisy ones.

Decibel meter on iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S phones. Other Android phones rate places by ear.

Look Up a Place

See whether it has been measured, and how loud it is. Any kind of place counts. To see every measured place near you, search with the SoundPrint app.

150+ countries measured

1,600+ cities measured

Free on iPhone and Android

SoundPrint app search results showing Very Loud, Quiet, Quiet List Awarded and Loud venues

As Seen In

The Wall Street Journal

The New Yorker

The Guardian

What the App Does

Measure

Take a SoundCheck

Open the app and tap SoundCheck. The phone's calibrated decibel meter listens for fifteen seconds — longer is better — then you pick the place from the list of what's around you and submit. Your measurement joins the database for everyone. Loud places matter as much as quiet ones.

SoundCheck meter showing 64 decibels, Quiet

Find

Find Places You Can Talk In

Search any city. Every measured place shows its sound level and distance, on a list or a map. The filter narrows to Quiet or Moderate places only, or widens the distance if you're outside a city center.

Search results: Very Loud with a noise complaint, Quiet List Awarded, Loud, Moderate

Speak Up

Nominate or Complain

When a place measures Quiet or Moderate, the last step of the submission lets you nominate it for the Quiet List — a way to promote and reward a venue that gets it right. When it measures Loud or Very Loud, the same spot lets you make a noise complaint, counted per venue and shown to everyone, to put the venue on notice. Use either only when it's warranted; most SoundChecks need neither. That's what keeps both signals strong.

Last Step screen with the Quiet List nomination toggle

See Our Quiet Lists

Hand-checked lists of reliably quiet places, city by city.

New York

United States

52 places · 27 quiet · 25 moderate

London

United Kingdom

28 places · 17 quiet · 11 moderate

Chicago

United States

28 places · 13 quiet · 15 moderate

See All 17 Cities →

Why It Matters

Two things make the sound level of a place worth knowing:

Conversation
Loud venues shut people out of it — and not only the millions living with hearing loss. Anyone can want a quieter table: a family dinner, a first date, a business lunch, catching up with a friend. For people with autism, sensory sensitivities or PTSD, and for many older adults, noise is often a deciding factor in whether they go out at all.
Hearing Health
Sustained noise above 80 dBA can damage hearing — and while a patron is exposed for an evening, the staff who work in that room are exposed every shift. That makes restaurant and bar noise a public health issue, for customers and employees alike.

SoundPrint shows you how loud a place is before you go — and when venues know their customers notice, they turn it down.

Read the SoundPrint Story