Does It have to be loud?

Looks like Elizabeth may have the only SPL meter :-) facts are pesky

just ran thru Live in Paris and a fantastic for me anyway level was 86.2 dB peak ( A weighted)

no wine, not dark yet, spouse away, Labrador faking asleep....

with the advent of digital and the analysis toys ... much music pretty limited in dynamic range, 30-35 dB common

knowing what your noise floor is in your room can be helpful in eliminating sources of ambient noise....

then there is....

some of the ticks and pops pops between songs , the Krall 45 rpm disc has some 40 dB ticks.... so in real terms signal to noise is approx 46 dB 

Also for less $$$ than you think you can get some nice tools to run on your phone or iPad, I use Studio Six Digital Audiotools RTA and a nice calibrated mic, unless I am lazy then I use the iPad microphone which ain’t too bad at 1k

YES , Enjoy the Music!  Play it Loud, Play it soft!

@gdhal - I agree that each recording seems to have a level, given room, system and recording, where everything comes together.
I think that sometimes, "turning it up" is meant to get more immediacy, impact and get the system out of the way, and if everything (including the recording) isn’t up to snuff, it’s just playing louder at you, but doesn’t sound more real. So I get @geoffkait ’s point, in that some recordings are compressed where there is no real dynamic range- a/k/a loudness wars.

I went to hear Crimson several months ago in a good hall here in Austin. The next morning, I played some material from the 2016 Live in Toronto LPs- there was just no way I could reproduce the scale of that recording, or the level of bass, in my room (which is fairly large by normal residential standards) at anywhere near what I heard live. Nonetheless,the recording and system acquitted themselves pretty well in that half-assed live v. recorded comparison.
I’ve aimed to get the resolving power of my system to a point where it doesn’t have to be super loud to be fully engaging and I do listen to a lot of very hard rock (mostly early stuff, before the term "proto-metal" was invented).
It is a shame that some of the records I like from that era, e.g. the first two Zep albums are not very good recordings. But, there are some that are- try Brian Davison’s Every Which Way (U.S. Mercury) circa 1970 or 71. You can turn it up and enjoy it like you would a well recorded jazz record- sounds like early Traffic. Some of the better known heavy rock records, like the first Sabbath album on Vertigo Swirl (UK) sound very good, even though they are primitive.
I find that I have to wear ear protection at almost all live rock events. They are just too loud and too often, overwhelm the room.

Personally when you start going over 90db  not only are you abusing your hearing 
But permanent hearing loss + tinnitus. Also room  reflections,  your room and  
Natural flowing  music will be an after thought ,unless you
Have room correction of some type.