Measurement and evaluation of the acoustic noise of a 3 Tesla MR scanner

We measured the sound level and frequencies of the acoustic noise generated by a 3 Tesla (T) MR scanner, and investigated the subjective sound level for 30 healthy volunteers with either earplugs, headphones or both. The sound level of 3T was found to be higher than that of 1.5T in all sequences. The peak sound pressure level of 3T ranged from 125.7 dB for MR angiography to 130.7 dB for single shot EPI on the linear scale. The equivalent noise level was from 110.0 dB for FLAIR to 115.8 dB for T1-IR on the A-weighted scale, which exceeded 99 dB, the level regulated by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The study of the subjective sound level showed that the effect of noise reduction was not significantly different between earplugs and headphones. However, the use of both devices could reduce the subjective sound level significantly better than either one alone (P < 0.01). Thus we propose wearing both devices for ear-protection during 3T examinations.