whats your idea of loud music.

I have Marantz Reference Sm-17 amps bridged for 200watts/channel running moderately sensitive PSB Stratus Bronzes. I have never turned them up much past 1/4 turn and try to run them below an SPL of 85 dB to preserve hearing, but that is usually plenty loud enough. I do like having the reserve power or headroom, though.
John

HAHA.. Good thread. I listen at moderate to moderately loud levels but the mood strikes I love to crank it up and "feel" the music.

I do have this buddy who runs a Cary SLI-50 (30WPC) and runs a pair of Tyler Linbrooks. He listens to stuff LOUD period. It always amazes me how loud and clean his stuff will play without strain.

My idea of Loud?

The Foo Fighters Concert at the 930 club here in DC last month. My ears rang for days...

Chris

An interesting fact is that the human ear perceives "Loud" by when distortion occurs. In other words, a system overloading at 85dB will sound louder than clean sound at 95dB. (Don't quote me on the exact numbers).

Some music needs to be felt as well as heard. In my case this is organ and sometimes massed choral, but I recon that pop would also apply. My system includes, in the front, three 12" and three 15" drivers working in conjunction with three MG1.6, with six 600 wpc amps powering the whole mess. The surround channels are only four 7" drivers and 450 wpc. With the right recording, I can just begin to feel a real pipe organ at work. If you doubt this, consider for one moment the "drivers" that the organ uses!

Sometimes I realize that I am playing the music too loud. The way I notice this is by focusing on a soloist, for example a violin or vocalist. I know how loud a single violin can play, and if the reproduced violin is louder than that I turn the volume down. Unfortunately this depends on how the recording has been mixed. Many times the soloist is boosted relative to the orchestra, so that if the soloist is right the total sound is too quiet. (One advantage of multichannel is that, if the mix puts the soloist in the center channel, which is usual practice, you can rebalance a recording with overemphasis on the soloist by turning down the center channel).

Finally, I do have tools to measure SPL. IMHO, over 95dB, neglecting brief peaks, is too loud.

go back to the dealer with humble pie/rockin the fillmore and crank it up until he cries like a little girl. remember, the flea-watt amps where originally built for and by a generation that thought vaughn monroe was a god.

My wife and I of course differ over what loud is....my definition is not being able to hear the phone ring 2 feet away when I'm listening to my favorites..A person's rig should be able to satisfy at all levels....Live music is not a quiet affair...this will be an interesting thread

I mostly agree with the above. But since when does WPC indicate loud? Good sounding loud any way. Driver excursion, SPL, and control is far more important than WPC, any day, and this requires amperage, not just voltage.

BWOE, I have experimented with a pair of AB International 1100A's that I have vs. the pair of Protons I use, the Protons sound much more musical, and have the same output dB as far as my ears are concerned, given my listening rooms size. The Protons are 110wpc, the AB International's are 550wpc. Different amplifiers obviously, but they both do the same thing.

There comes a point when a room can only tolerate "x" amount of SPL, any more than that and it sounds like crap, imaging goes out the window because your ears can not decipher the music from all the reverberation due to inherent room acoustics.

It took me quite a long time to get my cross-overs "tuned" or dialed in to my particular room w/my given drivers of choice. Move to the middle and the sound was ok, move to the back and it was bass heavy, and so on and so forth. The wave form created by a specfic speaker driver became completely different depending on placement, and crossover point. Where I wanted a given freq. with in the room was a chore to say the least.

All this is very driver (raw) dependent. Even with all the experimenting I did, certain electronics, esp. speakers have a sound of their own, no matter how much power you add to the mix.

Why did I ramble on? Because loud equates to SPL IMO, not WPC. So, for a given person, 90dB might be loud, but for people like myself, I prefer "live" levels, because I listen to a lot of "live" recorings. But studio recorded music (atleast for me) doesn't require the same power to be enjoyable. For me the essence of the source material is different, and my ears tell my brain this when I listen to a given type of music, loud is dependent upon the music type there fore, and not WPC.

"im not looking for a right or wrong answer im just curious as to what other guys consider loud to be defined as." 85 db and up, with good, crisp, accurate reproduction is loud for me. In certain musical passages, I'll push the volume higher for the dramatic effect, but that may not be what the performer had in mind. The remote volume control can be good and bad.

For an extended listening session, I put on the CD, close my eyes and with the volume set on the low side I begin to slowly increase the volume (via the remote control) until the sound "snaps into focus". When it just sounds right to my ears on that listening session, the volume is right. That is how I do it.

I like to be able to reproduce fairly loud listening levels when I want to. This means at least 200wpc. I also feel many people running low powered amps with average sensitivity speakers are more than likely clipping the amp once in a while, something I don't believe in. I use an Innersound ESL 300wpc at 8 or 600wpc into 4 with my Vmps RM 40's in my 12x17 room. I've noticed having plenty of power makes for a more relaxed and fuller sound on all the speakers I've owned for the last two decades.

I must be somewhere in the middle of the loudness preference scale.
Went to a dealer and was able to listen to some Wilson Audio Maxx speakers. The sales guy wouldn't turn the volume up enough for me to experience any of the bass slam and dynamics I know the speakers have to be capable of..He said they actually are playing louder than they seem because they do not distort. There may be some truth to that but I wanted to feel some of the energy but, noooo.
Then on the other hand I was invited to go listen to a nice fellows system that had some Revel Salons with Meridian and Levinson gear. He played the music so loud I thought my brain would explode. Owwwch! I kept reaching for the remote. I could not hear a word he said the whole time we were listening and he sat only about 4 feet away.
I do like to feel the music a bit, dynamics, bass and drums and such.
But no screeming stuff and if it's going to be loud no harsh garbage please!

Joe,

FWIW I am in your camp.

My stereo must be able to reproduce LOUD music for sustained periods. I have several different speakers that run from 89 DB/W/m to less, and I find my 250 WPC Proceed HPA's to be light.... If I had my way I'd run much more powewr to them.

Let's face it, I don't alwatys listen at this level, and often I WOULD like to be able to hear the person 5 feet from me, but regardless of the volume, I want it to be free from distortion, and in my experience, the amp is the biggest limiter of getting to loud volumes with speakers of this, reasonable, sensitivity...

Now if you switch to horns of 116 Db sensitivity, one watt will do you for all you want...so they say, but I personally would rather have too much amplifier power on hand than not enough any day.

As for te coffe cup, I don't get up early enough to listen to tunes... but can empathize with the idea...