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Perhaps the most annoying myth in audio of 2025? Talking about Loudness!

It is said far too often that the louder speaker will sound better, even by 1 decibel. I’ve found this statement to be supremely inaccurate. Anyone feels the same way or differently?

I feel the opposite to be true, once the speaker has reached a comfortable level, somewhere around 65-72 decibel, getting louder than that ought to sound worse for me. It usually sounds worse for a number of reason, room acoustic interactions, speaker cabinets, small distortion of drivers, etc.

 

Many years in this hobby has taught me to listen to things like smoothness, clarity, separation, microdynamics. An absolutely huge trait right now for me is how effortless is the sound. If it sounds strained, it’s not good to my ears, and many speakers sound strained to a degree even at average 70 db. After owning electrostats, I find many box speakers to lack the purity that I aim for. It gets worse the louder the box speakers get. 

samureyex

Showing 1 response by lanx0003

lanx0003
975 posts
 

I tend to agree with @carlsbad2. If your system does not sound good at a reasonably low volume level, it needs work. Fortunately, the work doesn’t need to be substantial, and you don’t need high-sensitivity speakers to achieve that.

In my rooms, with an ambient sound level of 25 dBA, 65 dBA is pretty loud to me. I usually listen at 55 dBA during the day and 45 dBA on quiet nights. I don’t have high-sensitivity speakers like 95 dB/1W/1m. To hear my system well at 45 dBA, I need to perform room correction and EQ. The end results are pretty close to the ELC (Equalized Loudness Contour) human hearing perception level at nominal SPL—everything is dialed in. Bass is articulate, tonal balance is right and life is good.

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