you can hear it muddled in water
Because you're ears evolved to hear sound in air. It's an interface problem, not a transmission problem. Same with speakers and microphones, they are designed to be used in air.
So if you want to actually hear the sound, stick with air.
If you just want to transmit some information via sound, a dense solid like a metal will give you the best speed and distance.
This is right.
Water or metal, take your pick: both massively-outperform air.
Wikipedia often has speed-of-sound for elements, iirc...
...
glancing at this, now I think that hexagonal-diamond would be most-efficient & fastest...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeds_of_sound_of_the_elements
Hexagonal-diamond is diamond, but with the carbon links in a different pattern.
Apparently you make it either 1 of 2 ways:
either alternate the orientation of layers of graphene, before compressing ( with explosives ) into diamond,
or you put carbon into a meteor, & crash it into a planet or something.
IOW, it forms about 60x as quick as normal-diamond, and takes insane pressure to do it.
Normal diamond would probably be next on the scale.
_ /\ _
Probably solid hydrogen.
I would say degenerate matter in a neutron star is a better conductor of sound. It's densely packed and doesn't have to deal with pesky things like electromagnetism slowing down the sound wave.
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