In case you're wondering, the reason for the strangeness here is because the decibel scale is logarithmic. An increase in 10 decibels, is actually 10 times the sound. So a 40dB fan is 10 times louder than a 30dB one, and 100 times louder than a 20dB one. If you want to work out just how much louder something is, the calculation is 10^(x / 10) (Where x is the difference in dB).