Grainger49
New member
My first was 1969, the Allman Brothers were warm up for Santana. The most recent is the one where we sat in front of the speakers. It was 2001-2004 sometime. Those seats should not have been sold even to someone who is deaf.
How loud do you listen to music?
- Thread starter Natural Sound
- Start date
Natural Sound
Active member
Who remembers, "The Wall of Sound."
4
4krow
Guest
And WE worry about speaker placement. umm what cables are they using? umm, what kind of connector enhancer do they like?
4
4krow
Guest
I dont believe you.
My fiance just downloaded an app on her iGadget (Decibel 10th, the same as Joel up in this thread used) to measure sound pressure levels. The living room where I also do my listening measures at 36-37 dB when nobody is talking. Based on the readings, I listen to my music between 65 and 75 dB on average, with occasional dynamic peaks shooting up to around 80 dB. Measurements taken in the evening past 10 o' clock.
If I go above 75-80 dB average, I start to get fatigued and uncomfortable quickly, which is probably a side effect of several things:
- crappy, rather plasticky speakers I'm using at the moment ($50 Pyle PDMN48 anyone?
)
- wall behind speakers and wall behind listening spot less than 2.5m apart
- simple DAC that does a decent job for the price but just sounds too digital to my taste
- no acoustic treatment
I'm waiting for my Orcas to arrive, fingers crossed. They should represent a more than decent remedy against listening fatigue if I may believe the general consensus. And I should also look into hanging some sort of absorbing panels behind the speakers... I guess this is why it's called a hobby.. it never ends
If I go above 75-80 dB average, I start to get fatigued and uncomfortable quickly, which is probably a side effect of several things:
- crappy, rather plasticky speakers I'm using at the moment ($50 Pyle PDMN48 anyone?
) - wall behind speakers and wall behind listening spot less than 2.5m apart
- simple DAC that does a decent job for the price but just sounds too digital to my taste
- no acoustic treatment
I'm waiting for my Orcas to arrive, fingers crossed. They should represent a more than decent remedy against listening fatigue if I may believe the general consensus. And I should also look into hanging some sort of absorbing panels behind the speakers... I guess this is why it's called a hobby.. it never ends
Classical music is very dynamic in an instant it goes from being so quiet that I have to strain my ears to hear all the musical details to being so loud I find myself suddenly upright in my chair and all my muscles taut. In order to enjoy the soft passages my amp has to be set at a volume level that makes the loud passages very loud. I enjoy the loud passages and they don't last very long. Maybe this is why Beethoven became deaf.
I doubt that Beethoven went deaf from too much noise. The Wiki article below has a section on his deafness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven
However over twenty years ago I went to a concert at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore where the students played all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. This monster concert started at 10 am and finished after midnight with a few breaks. The hall was quite lively and I have to say that at the end of the concert, my ears hurt. But I did get a new understanding of Beethoven.
The loudest piece I have heard in a concert hall was Messiaen's Turangalila. When the ondes martenot gets going it can get very loud. Which leads into the studies about orchestral musicians suffering from hearing loss.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21173486
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20721657
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/12/shock-data-60-percent-of-musicians-are-losing-their-hearing.html
I have seen some musicians sitting in front of the brass with plastic shields behind them for protection.
But now to a question. I measured my listening room and it appears to average about 32 db. Some peaks when music is playing come about mid eighties. If somehow I could reduce the background noise to 25 db by throwing out the refrigerator in the next room, could I reduce the volume I play the music and still get the same effect of dynamics?
ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven
However over twenty years ago I went to a concert at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore where the students played all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. This monster concert started at 10 am and finished after midnight with a few breaks. The hall was quite lively and I have to say that at the end of the concert, my ears hurt. But I did get a new understanding of Beethoven.
The loudest piece I have heard in a concert hall was Messiaen's Turangalila. When the ondes martenot gets going it can get very loud. Which leads into the studies about orchestral musicians suffering from hearing loss.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21173486
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20721657
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/12/shock-data-60-percent-of-musicians-are-losing-their-hearing.html
I have seen some musicians sitting in front of the brass with plastic shields behind them for protection.
But now to a question. I measured my listening room and it appears to average about 32 db. Some peaks when music is playing come about mid eighties. If somehow I could reduce the background noise to 25 db by throwing out the refrigerator in the next room, could I reduce the volume I play the music and still get the same effect of dynamics?
ray
4
4krow
Guest
The mention of piano performances reminded me of a recital that I attended. Maybe to make a fresh impression of her interpretation of Chopin, was to ATTACK the keys with all her might. Load and annoying, I left after a short while. I stayed as long as I did hoping that this student might have a change in character towards her performance, but no. My hearing is worth more than violent interpretation.
RayP said:
I think the only way to actually check that is to go empirical. However, I do not think unplugging a typical fridge will render a sound pressure drop of 7 dB. To give you an idea, when I switched off mine, which is in the same room as where I listen to music, I only saw a 1-1.5 dB decrease. I could be completely wrong, of course, since I don't know your situation
Please do tell us your empirical findings.
Grainger49
New member
I can attest that lowering the noise floor sounds like turning up the volume. I found that back in the 90s with a Power Wedge that eliminated power line noise.
This has piqued my interest..I have a radioshack meter around here somewhere. I'll need to spin up a couple cds and see where average listening is for me. I too remember (sort of) a Frank Zappa concert in Chicago many years ago where we had seats about 25 feet out in front of the left speaker bank..yeow.. No lasting damage though as my hearing has been tested a number of times since and has been 'excellent'.
I'm on the leading edge (as in I haven't started yet) of building a pair of 97dB speakers and powering them with a yet to be assembled Stereomour..I haven't experienced SET power and high sensitivity speakers, but, from this thread, it sounds like I'll have more than enough power (room 13 x ~16).
As as interesting aside..I read recently that all frequent motorcycle riders that don't protect their hearing tend to have hearing damage due to wind noise. I don't ride, but that took me a bit by surprise.
I'm on the leading edge (as in I haven't started yet) of building a pair of 97dB speakers and powering them with a yet to be assembled Stereomour..I haven't experienced SET power and high sensitivity speakers, but, from this thread, it sounds like I'll have more than enough power (room 13 x ~16).
As as interesting aside..I read recently that all frequent motorcycle riders that don't protect their hearing tend to have hearing damage due to wind noise. I don't ride, but that took me a bit by surprise.
Paul Joppa
Moderator
No.
The "frequency response" (for want of a more accurate term) of the ear is level dependent, so it only sounds right when the level is appropriate. The audiophile magic words are Fletcher-Munson Equal Loudness Contours, though there has been a much more modern and accurate ISO standard for the last few decades.
Old-style preamps had a "loudness contour" control or switch which would boost the lows and some of the highs to make an approximate correction and allow for a lower listening level. Most of those are based on the F-M curves, though I think I've seen one published that was closer to the more recent data. But the correction and lower levels have gone out of fashion, so neither approach is at all common these days.
Nevertheless, most studio engineers listen at a level of around 82dB, defined as the moderate-term average (time constant about 300mS) of musical peaks, as measured by a VU meter. A typical SPL meter will have similar characteristics to the VU meter, though not identical.
Note that quality recordings will have instantaneous peaks typically 5 time higher (+14dB), with studio compression. This is well below symphony orchestra levels in the closer seats, which may run more like 90-95dB if I recall correctly, and for a few instruments can have instantaneous peaks some 30dB greater. The real-world peaks are essentially never available in recordings, so that's an interesting but irrelevant piece of data. Clipping of these instantaneous peaks is usually an audible degradation, though it is much more subtle with the soft clipping of zero-feedback SET amps compared to high feedback amps. It's my belief that this effect is responsible for the reputation that SET watts are bigger than solid state watts.
The "frequency response" (for want of a more accurate term) of the ear is level dependent, so it only sounds right when the level is appropriate. The audiophile magic words are Fletcher-Munson Equal Loudness Contours, though there has been a much more modern and accurate ISO standard for the last few decades.
Old-style preamps had a "loudness contour" control or switch which would boost the lows and some of the highs to make an approximate correction and allow for a lower listening level. Most of those are based on the F-M curves, though I think I've seen one published that was closer to the more recent data. But the correction and lower levels have gone out of fashion, so neither approach is at all common these days.
Nevertheless, most studio engineers listen at a level of around 82dB, defined as the moderate-term average (time constant about 300mS) of musical peaks, as measured by a VU meter. A typical SPL meter will have similar characteristics to the VU meter, though not identical.
Note that quality recordings will have instantaneous peaks typically 5 time higher (+14dB), with studio compression. This is well below symphony orchestra levels in the closer seats, which may run more like 90-95dB if I recall correctly, and for a few instruments can have instantaneous peaks some 30dB greater. The real-world peaks are essentially never available in recordings, so that's an interesting but irrelevant piece of data. Clipping of these instantaneous peaks is usually an audible degradation, though it is much more subtle with the soft clipping of zero-feedback SET amps compared to high feedback amps. It's my belief that this effect is responsible for the reputation that SET watts are bigger than solid state watts.
4
4krow
Guest
Paul,
I think you hit the nail on the head. There is a right volume for many things. Sometimes it seems more important to me with some music than other music. Having said that, and with some experimentation, I won't go so far as to use fine/coarse mono controls for both channels, but I have found a pleasant medium with a main volume control and a fine tune control, one for each channel.
I think you hit the nail on the head. There is a right volume for many things. Sometimes it seems more important to me with some music than other music. Having said that, and with some experimentation, I won't go so far as to use fine/coarse mono controls for both channels, but I have found a pleasant medium with a main volume control and a fine tune control, one for each channel.
Its funny, I was just thinking about what Greg was saying about the live piano recital that was a bit 'much'. I have experienced that with live symphony music that was quite loud and intense. My hearing was a bit 'overwhelmed', and if I was listening to that sound over speakers I would probably find some sort of faults with the system! How crazy is that! Like what am I going to 'blame' - the hall acoustics? - no, this hall was one of the best for acoustics in the state. What I can blame is my jack-ass 'audiophile' mentality.
