paranoid listener-damaging speakers?


I am one of those guys who is always wondering if he is listening too loud for his speakers capability. my system briefly consists of a prima luna prologue 2 integrated, custom eton 2 way speakers with a silk dome tweeter and 8 inch midrange, with a mhdt labs constantine dac. my room is 15x12 feet roughly. i listen about 6 feet away.
I like to listen at a level where i can feel the bass and midbass and feel that the speakers are loud enough to recreate their original acoustic on the recording. is there a rough guide to know if i am listening too loud without a meter? i will occasinally think i hear some distortion on loud passages, but it may be on the recording, i may just be paranoid? advice please? thanks.
djwilbourn

Showing 3 responses by musicnoise

Specs for speakers are usually given at 1 meter from the speaker. As to your ears - the listening position.
As someone else mentioned - get an spl meter. As to hearing loss due to acoustic trauma - again, get an spl meter and take a look at reputable medical/audiology sites as to the level and duration of exposure that is unhealthy in this regard. What is subjectively loud depends on a lot of things, distortion will sound loud and distortion comes into play as to what will damage your speakers. Conversly, distortion does not come into play with what will damage your hearing. Actually , the highly distorted sound will likely cause you to turn the volume down prior to any damage to your hearing. It isn't the perceived loudness that damages your hearing, it is the force of the sound wave hitting the anatomical structures.
80 dB peaks is a very conservative listening level, particularly if you are listening to music with a wide dynamic range. Even for highly compressed music, 80 dB is conservative. The room is not large, the measurement was taken at a meaningful distance and if your amp was so underpowered as to have drastic clipping you would hear the distortion. Based on the above, it is highly unlikely that you are going to damage the drivers at that level.