I've sat in the booths a tiny bar with a jazz big band taking up the entire floor. It was amazing, but if I played my system at that kind of volume it would seem crazy loud—even though my living room is larger than that bar. I think the microcosm of music idea applies, and it's more than compression and good gear. Live music has a different energy to it from recordings. I'm kinda glad. It's part of why I love going to hear live music.
Does loudness play a part in your appreciation?
I wish it weren’t so but listening at high volume (around 70 decibels) tends to make me get more involved in the music.
How about you?
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I'm probably an 85 DB is loud guy. Mostly jazz. Most tracks or albums have a perfect sound level, all different. I turn the sound up until the image of the voice or instrument in front of me is the right size. Too loud and it's blasting and unrealistic. Too small and it elevator music. Anything realistic in size pretty much prohibits conversation. Guess we are loners a bit with this hobby. |
@mrdecibel higher volume enables easier selective listening…additional watts is my friend… Sleeping with one open may be a necessary self preservation skill |
@kennyc would there not be nagging over the higher volume? |
I tend to prefer to listen to several genres, (rock, pop, country, classical, jazz) at peak loudness of 80-88 dB. The softer parts being in the 70 dBs. Peaks above 90 dB start to feel uncomfortable after a few minutes. I'm seated about 8' from the plane of the speakers. My room is 14'x15'. 8' ceiling. Acoustically treated. |
This post inspired me to listen with a decibel meter to my desk top and main systems. I thought that 70dB seemed relatively low, but no. Mid-70s seemed pretty satisfying--about the level I ususaly listen at. The experiment also reminded me that very small increment can make all the difference. 78dB sounds very different than 75dB. Also, I think it is better to start at a relatively low volume and then increase to taste. Once a certain loudness threshold is crossed it is very hard to back off to a satisfying level, perhaps because your ears have been overstimulated, but that is a non-scientific guess. |
My source for audio decibel levels: https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/decibel-loudness-comparison-chart/ |
Ambient noise levels hardly ever acknowledged in discussions of listening rooms. Higher ambient noise levels may mask lower level information on recordings, as one increases volume this low level info now more clearly heard. Actual resolution of recording and system is fixed, perceived resolution goes up as either volume increased or ambient noise levels go down. People often speak as to how their systems sound better at night, many ascribe this to less noisy AC, I'd offer lower ambient noise levels are mostly responsible. Lowering ambient noise levels in our listening spaces should be of great concern. |
I was a classical musician who “lived in the world of real music.” |
@rvpiano - there is a related post on this to which I responded….. For what it’s worth, every evening I’m listening to music, I adjust the volume of almost every track that’s being played, sometimes even those on the same album. The reason isn’t purely because of the ‘style’ of music, but how each style relates to what I have come to identify as its most realistic presentation. Of course realism has found debate in our hobby, but for all intents and purposes, the approximation to realism is what defines why we are in the hobby to begin with. And every track of music has its sense of presentation, of what we each may have experienced and sensed at live music performance and attendance to understand relationship to that auditory realism which stirs our emotions. Rock realism IS loud, in precisely the same way that you’d never listen to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ with any volume than akin to her singing within the small intimate setting of a smoke-filled club or alike recording studio. And still, at a live rock concert venue, Extreme’s ‘more than words’ will have more atmosphere than loudness, all subtle dynamics still in place. Orchestral pieces get a little more latitude - how some tracks are recorded lend themselves to being heard at volumes one would hear from the first two rows or, preference calling, further back at the twentieth row and sometimes even from the upper balconies. As such, there isn’t a specific loudness i can listen to with any particular genre or style of music, simply because that closeness of resemblance to realism for even various tracks of one genre, may suggest different volume levels for its closest approximation to the presentation that makes it most realistic to me. The volume i listen to for realism of presentation is typically over a 17 decibel range. In friendship - kevin |
I remember as a schoolboy going to an all-Bartok concert at the Festival Hall in London. The conductor was Antal Dorati and the performance of Bluebeard’s Castle was recorded, I think by Mercury Living Presence. Anyway, the singer taking Judith’s part managed to ’drown out’ or at least cut through the entire orchestra playing fortissimo, when heard from the rear of the auditorium. Subjectively, I think about 90% of the sound we hear at a symphony concert is reflected from the venue. Even outdoor venues need reflective shells over the orchestra to project the sound forwards. If you ever get the chance, get yourself into an anechoic chamber. The absence of reflected sound is totally disorienting. The closest I have come to this in nature was sitting on the top of Iron Knob in South Australia looking out over the Nullabour plain, where only the ground reflected sound. The only sign of life was a dust trail on the far horizon as a lone vehicle headed for Perth, thousands of km away. Near total silence. (I remember a review of a Jaguar being driven from Perth to Melbourne. On leaving Perth the GPS said ’at the roundabout take the second exit’. The roundabout was 980 km ahead). |
A single violin player, a sax player and some percussion playing in a 25 by 30 room, which pretty much happens every weekend or so in my house will easily be the loudest thing guys on this thread might hear, it appears... if they are listening @70db and calling it loud. I have been in several studios with artists and mastering techs at the instant some final listening tests happened before what is deemed as a final product...If you all are thinking that your 70db levels are the artists’ intent, you are flat out wrong again. The studios get relatively loud even for me. i don’t invite ’audiophiles" over or do any listening with them anymore for the same reason/one reason.... It is a..lets just leave it there...and no, the collective set of all musicians in the world didn’t all go deaf by now. They have much better hearing than the regular masses. I am in my 50s and have the same hearing i had in ny 20s, last i checked. This thread appears to be completely detached from the world of real music or musicians.
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I’m about 8 feet from the speakers. I’m seated at this distance. The room is 23’ by 25’. Drivers are arranged up and down the front of the speakers. Yes, classical music has the widest dynamic range. |
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When you say 70dB where are you taking that measurement? At the (speaker) source, X feet away from the source? At your listening position, if so are you seated or standing and how far above / below your ears are the speaker drivers? Also, since you specified classical music - is 70db an 'average' reading throughout a piece, or a crescendo or lull reading..? For myself, I generally find listening at around 80dB to be the 'sweet spot' in my particular listening environment (18 X 40 ft room, approx. 12 feet from the speakers, most musical genres) and this equates to about 1 watt per channel of output from my system. I have noted that, specifically when listening to classical music, I find it more sonically pleasing to lower the volume slightly - as I feel like the changes between soft passages and louder parts seem more abrupt and less subtle to my ears, than for example jazz or even moderate rock music...
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0 -70dB Normal piano practice 70dB Fortissimo Singer, 3’ 75 - 85dB Chamber music, small auditorium 84 - 103dB Piano Fortissimo 82 - 92dB Violin 85 -111dB Cello 95-112dB Oboe 92 -103dB Flute 90 -106dB Piccolo 85 - 114dB Clarinet 90 - 106dB French horn 85 - 114dB Trombone 106dB Tympani & bass drum 94dB Walkman on 5/10 120 - 137dB Symphonic music peak 150dB Rock music peak
This is just wrong in that it considers neither distance nor directionality. The sound emitted from a woodwind expands in a whole different set of directions than a brass instrument where the sound comes out the bell or strings where the body is the resonating cavity. Volume at a mic is affected accordingly. Are we really to believe that an 8’ Steinway at fortissimo would be drown out by a cello or an oboe? |
Absolutely right. You can’t reproduce a symphony orchestra In your living room. Even if you match the decibel reading level it will not sound the same. |
Am I missing something? Audio rigs produce microcosms of live music. There's no alternative, unless your living room is the size of the venue. Or consider how loud a trumpet is when played by a real person. Do you want that in your living room? I didn't think so. Given that these are microcosms, it's just up to all the variables involved and there is no right way to listen. |
Mahler's second symphony (Resurrection) was played in the first concert after $100-million was spent fixing the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House. Not my money, but well spent! This symphony would surely have some of the greatest dynamic and emotional ranges in the repertoire, from pin-drop quiet to cacophony. The tam tams (gongs) at the end should be played so hard, they rarely get back to vertical. Gilbert Kaplan was head of a chemical company but got himself taught how to conduct, just to play this symphony. He has conducted it around the world and I have a performance on CD. Not quite as good as Sir Simon Rattle, but Sir Simon is a percussionist ...
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I took the approach that volume should be carefully adjusted for classical music to match the live experience... and that perhaps that was also the correct volume for other music. I had season tickets to the symphony for a decade, 7th row center. So several times I would go to the symphony and listen specific for the cues and pieces of music that were good for calibration. Something that started very quietly out of the silence and then noting the crescendos. I found this useful for classical music. Of course the loudness varies from recording to recording, so there is not set place on the volume control. But I found this volume was often louder than I wanted listen day to day on other music. Not that it sounded bad, just louder than I wanted. |
Well, if they were looking at the chart I posted, they would see that 70 db is well below average for what instruments actually produce. For whatever reason, your level of listening is pretty well below the actual live db levels of classical instruments. To remind folks:
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I have used Quad electrostatics for about 40 years, first the 63s then the bigger 2905s. They have a built-in volume limit, in that at signal voltages over about 40-Volts they deliberately compress the signal, ultimately presenting as a short-circuit at about 57-Volts. I have found that newer recordings on SACD and Blu-ray tend to have ever higher peak outputs, as measured by the point at which my Krell power amp trips because the Quads have clamped! Almost by accident, I recently bought a pair of KEF Reference 1 speakers which also try to emulate a point source of sound. They can play far louder than the Quads! My own hypothesis is that many people are looking for a ’smooth’ or ’warm’ sound so are attracted to the pleasant harmonic distortions of some valve equipment and seek an ’analogue’ resonant sound from digital. I am looking for a realistic experience judged against live (non-amplified) music. Much of the orchestral music I listen to really is discordant and edgy, as in his time was Beethoven. (There is apparently no evidence his deafness was caused by playing too loud) |
Richard, distortion is likely an issue for lots of people, especially those who use traditional dynamic speakers. That’s one reason I’ve mostly been attracted to planars, either Magnepans or, for the least 15 years, Quad 63s. I would think horns would also exhibit low distortion, but my experience with them is very limited. In any event, it seems possible that some of the folks who are listening at what seem to be low levels do so because it sounds better to them due to increased distortion at higher levels. Just a hypothesis. |
@komono Peter Walker, the brains behind Quad amplifiers and electrostatic speakers, said that the volume knob should be treated like the focus control on a camera. Use it to bring the music into focus, which I interpret to mean place yourself at the volume level intended by the recording engineer, where the balance of instruments best approaches reality. His byline was "the closest approach to the original sound" and he targeted classical music, which has a much bigger dynamic range than most other genres. He recognised that it was practically impossible to reproduce typical front-row sound levels, and instead described reproduced music as listening through an open window into a concert hall. I am pretty sure most people instinctively keep turning the volume up until distortion raises its ugly head, at which point the volume is still way below the peak levels of un-amplified orchestral instruments. I know that applies to me and I probably play far too loud to not be damaging my hearing. Completely agree with your comments on how meaningless db 'measurements' can be without further details. |
I normally listen at a 70db average with percussive or fff to ffff passages reaching 80 to 90db. I find this level enjoyable and not triggering sever adverse reactions from my wife and family members (no dedicated listening room, formal living room serves as listening room). However, they may still react to louder peaks. This is below mid orchestra/front first tier seating where the average sound level is 70 to 90db with peaks of over 100db (see references and my own iPhone measurements that are not posted, as inaccurate as they are). When in the mood for reproducing the concert experience, I will raise the average to a 90db level. Rock concerts average 100db and 120db peaks. I do not find that enjoyablevat a concert or in my home. See some peer reviewed literature: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/352277/9789240043114-eng.pdf?sequence=1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7050229/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2004/01/11/the-decibel-debate-sound-and-the-symphony/
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That’s as loud as I try to listen now to save my old guy ears. I do like it loud like a lot of the concerts I’ve attended over the years. To me The Who doesn’t sound as good at quiet listening levels. Live at Leeds is played at 60-70 dBA now. Don’t want to think about how loud I used to listen to it. I also wear earplugs now at concerts. |
It absolutely 100% does. I want to be blown away at home like what happens at a well produced live event. Not all the time, but for serious listening yes. 90 db is about my practical personal threshold for peaks. That or lower should be considered the practical limit in general to avoid damage to the ears. We don’t want that to happen!
Live events can easily exceed that limit. Depends on venue and where you sit. I tend to avoid the closest 1/3 seats at most live performances. Less risk of damage and a better “sweet spot”. |
I think @hilde45’s post is the most enlightening in this thread. All this discussion of levels has been divorced from the reality of live music, which, IMO, is what we all should strive to emulate. And the idea of listening to anything but the softest passages at 75dB, whether A or C weighted, just can’t emulate live. |
It is important for me to be able to come close to live levels in my listening room although I don't often do it or really listen at those levels. My room is 30ft. x 40ft x 25ft. Playing something like Bonerama, Live in New York I've measured in excess of 130dB, eighteen feet in front of my speakers. Having a system that can do that makes it much more enjoyable at more reasonable listening levels. And yes, I wear my Walkers when testing at these levels for any length of time. |
Higher volumes can make things more involving, yes. Depending on the components in the system (I switch things around), they need more ooomph to get momentum, come into balance. Regarding the idea that 70 db is loud, here’s a chart: Environmental Noise 0dB Weakest sound heard 30dB Whisper Quiet Library at 6’ 60-65dB Normal conversation at 3’ 80dB Telephone dial tone 85dB City Traffic (inside 1 car) Sound Levels of Music 60 -70dB Normal piano practice 70dB Fortissimo Singer, 3’ 75 - 85dB Chamber music, small auditorium 84 - 103dB Piano Fortissimo 82 - 92dB Violin 85 -111dB Cello 95-112dB Oboe 92 -103dB Flute 90 -106dB Piccolo 85 - 114dB Clarinet 90 - 106dB French horn 85 - 114dB Trombone 106dB Tympani & bass drum 94dB Walkman on 5/10 120 - 137dB Symphonic music peak 120dB Amplifier, rock, 4-6’ 150dB Rock music peak https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/decibel-loudness-comparison-chart/ |
With my Tube Raven Audio Reflection and having tinnitus and playing at 65 db I hear the ringing and the music and yet if I really really pay attention you still hear detail that is different than say 75db which is loudest I play...At 75db OMG the sound god comes alive and at times No Ringing and just music and the tubes just dissect the music into 3D sound stage and I am fully engaged into it until a moment I think about my ringing tinnitus and then I hear both ..But during that time of silent ringing is a moment of listening to music that makes me feeling relaxed.. |
It's a great question actually. I've wondered about this myself some lately. A friend and I were comparing listening sessions recently and I realized we like to listen at different volume levels. And, thoughts around how each of our systems will sound different if he's listening at 80db and I'm listening at 70db most of the time. My system's character changes overall when comparing 65,70,75,80-85db listening levels. I don't care for how my current system sounds when the volume level is turned up really loud. My level of interest and engagement drops notably. |
For the most part,I enjoy the music I'm listening to regardless of volume level.HOWEVER,there are many times when a song triggers associated memories..Most all the time,those songs are of the variety that are high energy & I'll turn that volume knob clockwise which does seem to add to the enjoyment factor... |
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