Is a DW NL unit equal to a decibel?

No, and this has caused SO many problem! :nope:

There is a crazy conversion that Amizaur has but the long and the short of it is that it's a reduced scale in terms of range and that reduces the ability of any given value to represent a specific decibel value. In other words, it's a issue that Amizaur and I have to work around every time we deal with sound levels, since Amizaur's data is all in real values and sometimes making that behavior with SL values and thrust curves can be very hard, since creating a change SL that is meaningful often means going beyond the changes in actual decible level.

I think Amizaur can give you better explanation of the practical effects on modding and gameplay.