Getting accurate sound levels in spectrum analysis

I installed a freeware plug-in on Sound Forge that provides a spectrum
analysis. When I analyze something, it seems like there's a lot of sound
energy at low frequencies, even though I don't seem to be hearing that much at
the low end. There's a "slope" adjustment in the analyzer, but I'm not sure
what it does--can someone explain it to me?

I tried generating some white noise and then adjusting the slope so that the
spectrum was relatively flat (since I presume that white noise contains equal
amounts of sound energy at all frequencies), but I'm not sure that this
accomplished what I want. I'd just like to see the actual sound levels for
each frequency.

If it makes a difference, the audio editing program is Sound Forge (the Audio
Studio version) and the plug-in is VOXengo SPAN.
.

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