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 mswale

Interesting discussion. 

On my system, it sounds very good around 60db, that is usually my morning listening volume while the house is asleep. The sound is clean, clear, good soundstage, good dynamics. 

When I turn it up, it does get louder, but it does more than that, the soundstage gets much bigger, everything opens up, get better imaging, with the bigger soundstage, much more presence. Everything is clean, more clarity, better seperation. The music has weight to it. You can feel it pressuring the room. This works up to around 100db.

Over 105db, it's still clear, but starts to hurt being in the room, the soundstage is much bigger than the room. But there is no distortion, you can still pick out each instrument. Mids do start to get a big forward, the highs can start to get harsh. Bass however is glorious! The whole house starts to vibrate. At these levels, the treble control goes from 0 to -4 or -6, to tame the harshness. 

The sweet spot is around 90db at my listening spot, everything just goes tougher.