How loud do you listen to music?

Natural Sound

Natural Sound

New member
Fist off I'm going on 52 years young and in excellent health. But I have on occasion abused my hearing. Most of this occurred when I was a lot younger and living in NY. There was never a shortage of music venues when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Hanging out with friends and listening to loud music, mostly rock, was the norm.

My hearing is still very good despite the abuses I've put on my auditory system over the years. When I got into my thirties I backed WAY off the volume control. I want to preserve my hearing as best as possible so that I can enjoy music well into my golden years.

Lately I've been wondering what kind of sound pressure levels I have been subjecting my ears to. Then it dawned on me. I have a sound level meter in the closet. Its not the best instrument in the world but it should give me a good idea. It turned out that the dB levels were lower than I expected, which is good.

The meter I'm using is an el cheapo RadioShack 33-2050. I bought it to balance out my 5.1 home theater system. When used with a calibration disc it works pretty well.

I know there are a lot of ways to measure this but I decided to keep it simple. I set the meter response switch to slow and the weighting is set to C so that I measure across the complete frequency range. Then I simply place the meter near my
 
FWIW a favorite "standard" level used when making comparisons in the studio averages around 82dB.
 
Tom,

I'm only a couple years older than you and your measurments come out to be the same as mine -- I consider 85 dB at the listening chair to be quite loud, and I too am always, or at least used to be, a bit surprised by how low the levels typically are when measured.  I was also able to verify this once with a real pro SPL meter and the differences were negligible.  I find I like listening at for lack of a better term, a "correct" level in which all sounds feel in proper proportion to me -- where I can hear everything but nothing is over or underdone.

Man are you going to love your Orcas :-).

-- Jim
 
Hmmm thought I was the only one who didn't need the loudness that I used to. I use ear plugs more than most people, yet my hearing is not exceptional anymore.
  I remember taking an SPL meter to the airport to measure sound levels during a flight. Yah I was REAL popular at the security check. Almost made me late for my flight.
 
I have a free iphone app (Ultimate ears SPL) and I think it's pretty accurate. It can measure A or C weighing. The inside of the plane IIRC measured around 90+. I always bring my Ety ER4 on long flights.
Anyway, at my listening area, I get around 80-85db coming from 1.5WPC Stereomour.
 
For what it's worth, a sound level meter (like studio VU meters) measures a short-term average, a few hundred milliseconds. The instantaneous peaks on well-recorded analog live music are normally taken to be 14dB louder; a few audiophile recordings can get to 20dB. (The lowest grade of commercial pop music is so compressed, the peaks may be less than a dB louder).
 
My meter says I listen in the mid 60dBA range peaking to the low 70s.  It is a nice comfortable listening range for me.
 
I have found that not all sound is good sound for the ears, even at a given sound pressure. Distortion is the key. Even moderate levels are fatiguing if the sound is crap. If the tweeter/amp etc. is straining then your hearing is getting destroyed. There is, of course, the consequences of hearing damage at high sound pressures, no matter the 'quality'. At this point in my life, I want to enjoy my hobbie, if that means some hearing loss, so be it. I use my cost benefit algorithm in my head to determine the 'right' volume at a given time/song etc. I'm not too vain to get a hearing aid in the future if i need one.
 
Doc B. said:
Man, that's background music levels around here.
Click to expand...

Are you listening to Bluegrass?  An acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo and bass should be only so loud.

I'll put on Chicago later and make a check.  I'm headed out to Habitat in a few minutes.
 
I've been to Grainger's house and I can assure you he isn't listening at those levels... ;).  I use a free app called Decibel 10th on my iPad that says I am in the 75 to 80db range typically. Anything over that I worry I'm disturbing the neighbors. It's a pretty slick program for free and will also allow you to capture and email it's findings.

Joel
 
My night time listening is typically around 66dB but during the day I might bump it up as high as 85dB.  I rarely crank it higher unless I'm demoing my system for my latest victim. ;D
 
Joel's post gave me a kick in the ass.  I let visitors choose a comfortable volume.  I hate it when someone listens so loud I can't enjoy the music.

I checked with Chicago Transit Authority, the first album.  It might have gone 3-5dB louder, as loud as I will listen to rock, or any music.  But as I listen the volume control goes from the 10:00-11:00 position to the 1:00 over the first half hour.  Jerry Douglas sounds better at a lower volume, so does the Wailin' Jennys.
 
CTA is kinda famous for having some unusually high peaks on the horn section. So, their albums probably aren't the best for testing average levels.

What I've always heard was what Doc mentioned in his first post. 82dB is the "loud" reference level for my nearfield monitors. And being able to carry on a conversation at normal speaking levels is a quick and dirty way to be sure that the monitor level isn't higher than that.
I do tend to listen to headphones at higher levels though. I often have to turn the volume down a few dB's if I expect my perception of high frequencies to last for hours on end (particularly +12kHz).
I'm 59 years old and while I can still hear 5 or 6 dB changes in frequencies above 14kHz, I have to be pretty focused on those "air" frequencies to hear changes at 16kHz and above (plus, there just ain't that much energy happening in that freq range on most recordings).

So, if you listen to headphones a lot, my advice is to train yourself to keep the levels reasonable. It's tempting to try and get that pant leg flapping bass on headphones by cranking up the volume, but it's just not good for your hearing to do that all the time.
 
Hey Steve - I know what you are saying about headphones. They require discipline. The sound can be so good you loose track of the db's. Thats why I dont listen with headphones! Discipline is not something I exercise with my audio hobby.

It funny that several have mentioned CTA as a reference. I have been using that album as a reference when making changes to my system. It seems to be a recording that is particularly difficult to get to sound 'right'. Not sure why. It might be because the horns and the piano are hard to reproduce just right, not sure. Its a favorite album of mine, and it is pure nirvana when it sounds right. I think it can tend to be bright. That may be part of it. Great album though, and a great piece of pure 60's Americana. I remember my friends sister turned us on to it, as well as Iron Butterfly.
 
Reminds me of the Allman Brothers concert where we were in front of a 20' stack of speakers.  We were pummeled!!

We should have taken this offline.  We are way off topic.
 
wow - Allman Brothers in concert. That must have been one to remember! Those audio systems sounded fantastic back in the day. At least thats the way I remember them.
 
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