whats your idea of loud music.

Donbellphd

have you ever had a bike go by you that was so damm loud you couldnt hear yourself talk on the cell phone,if so then that guys pipes did what they were designed to do & thats to wake you up.

people driving cars or suv's dont see motorcycle's (why you ask) because their TOO BUSY on their cell phone or TOO BUSY watching a movie or TOO BUSY putting on their make up or TOO BUSY eating or TOO BUSY reading the paper or TOO BUSY blabbing to the person in the passenger seat or TOO BUSY scolding their children or TOO BUSY flippin the radio station & on & on & on,BUSY BUSY BUSY multi tasking while driving,but wait let me guess...........not you right?

ive been riding loud harleys since i was 16 years old (long before they became a cool investment) & i can attest to the fact that people only care about bikers AFTER they blindly run them down (but officer he just came out of nowhere) ive heard that speech while i lay waiting on an ambulance have you ?

i personally take offense to your ignorant & uninformed statement that we are show off's on our dork cycle's,do i want everybody on the road to look at me,yes i do & not becuase i want them to see how cool i am or how tough i look all tattooed up but because i know until they look at me im casper the ghost.

there's an old biker saying that will sum up all your questions about why we have loud pipes "if you have to ask i cant explain"

mike,the show off on the dork cycle.

Depends I guess, on the mood I'm in. There are times after work when I sit down in front of the system, to answer email, with a record on the table, and my hearing becomes very sensitive, such that "loud," is no more than 70 dB average SPL.

Other times "loud" doesn't begin to happen, until up into the high 80s. Our most important sound system is prone to "gain adjustments," as befits our mood and state of energy.

A BIG LOL to Mike the biker and Elizebeth.

Loud wont hurt you until it becomes such that it over powers the ears mechanical abilities to discren frequencies, and this is quite beyond 110dB, thus causing mechanical defect/damage to the working parts ofthe ears and the need for hearing aids- LOUD rarely causes this, most often unchecked bacterial invasion is the culprit.

If the Sound is loud, yet undistorted, more often then not, no hearing function is, or, will be lost. Want proof?
Ask all the ENT doc's whom own Krell systems. Or, some one who has been into Audio for more then 20 years- BTW, I hear just fine, better then most for that matter.

Eldartford made some good points about distortion, power levels and perceived volume. If one looks in the archives, you'll find that i've always been a BIG fan of "dynamic headroom" in all aspects of system operation. Stressing any part of the system introduces some form of distortion and that added distortion adds apparent volume.

When a system has reached the point of having a high level of dynamic headroom, one can listen at phenomenally high levels for extended periods of time without it sounding "all that loud" and / or experiencing "listening fatigue". This is not to say that i would recommend making a regular habit of this or that everyone should strive to achieve such things from their system, but personally, i find this a very desirable trait. I also found that when i had achieved this level of performance, my listening levels had actually crept up on the average. I know that others here have experienced and shared similar vantage points too.

Having said that, i find that certain recordings have what i find to be a "proper" listening level. Not everything was meant to be played at roaring volumes, nor do all recordings sound best as "background music". A good recording sounds best at the appr listening level that one would encounter if listening to the performers at a live event. Obviously, that volume level will change with the size of the venue, one's listening position, the acoustics of the room and volume of people in attendance, etc... Just as we all have personal preferences in volume and seating positions at live events, i'm assuming that also applies to how we listen to and have our our systems set up at home too.

Other than that, Alpha 03 also made some very valid points. What we are discussing here is the ability ( or inability ) to generate clean SPL's. Due to different levels of loudspeaker efficiency and how they individually dynamically compress the signal, room loading characteristics ( yes, ALL rooms "acoustically overload" at some point ), the ability of the amp to load into and control the speaker system, etc... all add up to what we hear and experience. Like most things, it is a complex subject with a lot of variables involved. Sean
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PS... One can run "straight pipes" on a Harley and have them sound "quieter" than a "race tuned" but muffled "rice rocket". Once again, this all has to do with acoustics, how we hear, the tuning of the exhaust system and the resonant frequency that the tuning occurs at.

Higher spl's or "louder pipes" don't necessarily make more power and in many cases, they actually make LESS power over a wider bandwidth. This has to do with the volumetric efficiency of the motor and the flow velocities involved.

As a case in point, my vintage Harley with straight pipes is measurably quieter ( and less annoying ) than my friends much newer "highly modified" Honda that has "racing mufflers". This happens for the same reason that i can hear "rice rockets" revving up to 10,000+ rpm's several miles away, whereas the noisy "blat" of a poorly tuned Harley only makes it a few blocks. This has to do with the volume of air displaced ( bore & stroke vs rpm's ) and the tuning frequency of the intake / exhaust system.

Much of this has to do with acoustics and the way that our ear / brain processes information. This is why the government chose to use higher frequencies for use in our "emergency sirens", not the less offensive but potentially equally "loud" low frequencies. It is for this same reason that many people prefer to listen to a "soft, warm & smooth" sounding system as compared to a "more forward" and / or "bright sounding" system.

Different strokes for different folks.

I don't know if I agree 100% w/ Bigjoe. There are guys who used to gun their bikes up and down our (deserted) quiet street at 2 in the AM when the nearby biker bar "The Bashful Bandit" closed. We (residents) cured that recently when the City of Tucson installed speed bumps deciding no doubt, it was cheaper than patrol cars being called all the time; now we can get some sleep!

As for audio, I honestly can't understand why anyone would want to play something at a volume in excess of what the source would produce in reality. (I realize this is a little more difficult to determine with rock performances, and you sort of have to decide where in the "stadium" you want to imagine yourself :~)

Nevertheless, I think dialing in the volume just right to obtain what you believe is the actual performance level, not too loud, not too soft, is an art, and requires some real listening skills.

I also want to say I think there is some merit to Sean and Alpha's comments RE: the quality of reproduction v. volume v. auditory damage, but only up to a point! I'm in my sixth decade, and I know I've lost my hi freq acuity, but I can still hear almost the whole Cardas sweep track if I turn the hi freq. portion way WAY up, ha Ha!

Which brings me, apropo of Alpha and Bigjoe's remarks, to share something I've read about, but never tried -- and which this thread has inspired me to do: apparently a certain amount of lost auditory acuity can be restored by wearing ear plugs for prolonged periods when hearing isn't important to you, ie not when driving and not when sleeping (don't want to miss that smoke alarm!) Supposedly, after doing this for even a few days, your hearing ability is very much improved. Which means that a part of the problem may have to do with overloaded neural circuits and not overloaded eardrums! Anyway, I'm going to try it, and report back.

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