What is the loudest sound you have ever heard?

[TheTecknician]

Both of mine were at very close quarters. One was a foghorn on a cross-channel ferry. It sounded whilst I, unbeknownst to me, was sitting right underneath it. I jumped so far it's a wonder I didn't end up in the sea! The other was one afternoon at work, standing underneath Concorde when it was starting two of its four engines. It was the most incredible, deep-chested roar I've ever heard. Yet to be surpassed.

Big Ben - standing next to it when it rang midday.

During the London riots. The met helicopter hovering about 10 inches from our flat window. Blasting their lights and microphone. Really was a wtf moment.

I was woken up by a loud noise that I felt inside me a few years ago. I looked on twitter & people were talking about it. It was a sonic boom.

A sonic boom over the town we live in a few years ago. Windows shattered and several people I know who were outside at the time suddenly found themselves down on the pavement having - without consciously deciding to - dropped to the ground for safety.

Who pays to fix the windows?

Concord taking off

Standing on a ladder, repositioning a CCTV camera, what I didn't notice was the fire alarm bell very close to it. And the fire alarm went off.

They're not designed for you to be that close. I have no idea how I stayed on that ladder.

Concord taking off from Heathrow. Indescribable noise, made you want to run for cover like a scared animal. Glad it's gone.

Sigur Ros live in concert.

So loud. But such a good quality of noise that my ears didn't ring the next day. Like magic!

As a teen, a friend was messing about with a canister which held helium (to fill up some balloons)

Something happened with it and it banged. It was so loud it actually deafened us for a few minutes.

I remember thinking as it happened that we'd all be deaf forever, which of course we weren't. Terrifying experience and left me scared of canisters for life!

Sonic boom - I thought something had driven into my house

The IRA bomb in the Attorney General's house (Nigel Havers' dad).

People shouting into the void on MN.

Military aircraft. Thought the World was ending. Horses could have totally freaked out.

The rock band Twisted Sister in Dunstable years ago. It was unbearable. God knows why I stayed.

Car bomb.

A clap of thunder directly overhead as we were exiting the tube station in an echoey tunnel near the natural history museum. Everyone physically ducked it was so loud.

Anyone making a call in their car using the Bluetooth. Nothing is louder

The bang when they blew down the flats at the end of our road.

The original engines of an InterCity 125 as it accelerated out of a station. It really was something else. Sadly those engines were replaced with quieter ones some years ago.

My teenage daughter going up the stairs and walking from room to room. A herd of elephants would make less noise

When I went to an airfield for a display in the 90s. We were standing at the fringes of the allowed area, and a jet fired up. As it turned I and a handful of other people got knocked clean off our feet by the hot air and the noise. My ears were ringing for the rest of the day!

Some absolute twat setting off a rocket (firework) in the living room of a flat in Spain we were in at a party - so tiled floor, painted plaster walls and blinds instead of curtains. We were deafened and it was so bloody reckless and stupid. Needless to say the twat was kicked out. We left not long after. I was partially deaf with my ears ringing for ages afterwards.

A gun in a shooting range. I'd been given ear defenders fobut for some stupid reason didn't have them on, or not properly anyway. My ear really hurt after that!

The sound I made when I was in labour with DS1

That said, it wasn't as loud as a lot of these sound! But my ears did ring for about half a day afterwards.

A Harry Styles concert. 80000 people shouting ‘leave America’ at the same time.

Also my sisters dog barking in the back seat of her car, I nearly went through the roof at the volume of it. I was so shocked as my own dog rarely barks and this was SO loud!!