Despair isn't the word!
(Grump: on)
Underwater?
Firstly: why?
Second, here's the thing: Sound travels exactly the same underwater except it travels a lot further. So the sound of the UA underwater is the same sound as it is *not* underwater, if broadcast by an underwater speaker.
Or, let's say the sound you're hearing is being broadcast over radio frequencies - which ultimately is only way we'd hear it in our ships in the first place - well, these propagate through water much like they do through any other medium, so it would be exactly the same.
I think you're thinking of the way that human-produced sound is garbled underwater, but that's only because the sound our voiceboxes produce requires air to work. And when we produce sound with our mouths open, unfortunately we also produce bubbles that garble the sound - there's bound to be some complex physics that describes that - which is most likely beyond me. If you hum with your mouth closed, however, it sounds much the same to an underwater listener as it does above ground, except our ears don't work quite as well under water as they do above.
Whales, dolphins etc do not have the same limitation - their sound is produced without the need for air, or at least, they're not using a voice box like ours, so what we hear underwater is much as it would be above; except it travels a lot further.
But, let's say there is actually an audible sound, and you want to hear what it would sound like as a listener above water with the sound originating under water. Well, sound waves travelling through water don't really propagate well into air, because they're different mediums. You'd need the surface of the water to act like a speaker, but it doesn't - at least not very well. Instead, most of the sound waves just bounce off the internal water 'surface' and back down again (just like light in fact). Those that don't will cause the water surface to ripple, and the sound you hear above the water would just be that water movement, not the sound that caused it.
Of course, if you want to be really @nal, then if you're in a boat, then some of the sound is transmitted through the hull, of course, but only a narrow portion of the original frequency - which would be dependant upon the material of the hull and it's frequency response. A wooden hull, for example, is going to be much like a high pass filter with a very low threshold. Unless it's very thin, bit the thinner it is, I think, and the less bass you get. Best case here is an identical sound, but a lot quieter.
So hope everyone can agree that we can use logic and reason to deduce that there's no value in thinking about underwater sound, without the need even to simulate it.
Or, by all means, buy some underwater speakers and do the test that way.
(/Grump: off)
And apologies for any offence caused. I've tried to be as factual and neutral as possible here.
Putting forward an idea is absolutely fine - I mean - we need all the people we can get! - but you have to be prepared for it to be challenged. All that stuff I've just put up there is clearly over thinking the argument to the underwater test about a sound produced by a game - but it serves, I hope, to demonstrate the sheer unlikelihood that there could be any value in doing it - it just wouldn't make any sense at all.
