How do you listen?

Last week I attended a Beethoven fourth symphony concert at Verizon hall in Philadelphia. The sound levels in the upper balcony center where I was peaked in the 70 to low 80 dB range. I found it comfortable and enjoyable and that is about the same level that I like to listen to at home for a symphony. Chamber music is played quieter. Sounds like this agree with several of you.

really mijostyn5,258 posts? ??

@mijostyn As a Board Certified Otolaryngologist-Head and Neck Surgeon (ENT doctor) I ask you, what about the Tensor Tympani muscle? Which is the "first line of defense" against toxic noise exposure. You state: the Stapedius muscle is the "smallest" in the human body? What about the Tensor Tympani? How do you know this? Done many stapedectomies, ossicular reconstructions in your lifetime? Please provide reference. Wow.

Can you provide the documented evidence that the Stapedius TENDON/muscle "tightens up slowly" and not neurologically/reflexly rapidly (as in micro/milliseconds) and is expected and observed in just about every other protective neuromuscular reflex in the human body)?

Moreover, your statement of "... therefore always important to warm your ears up. I start at about 80 dB and add 2 db or so every two or three minutes until I get up to 95 dB. This gives the stapedius time to tighten up and protect your inner ear from noise induced damage.  This is also why impulse noise like gun shots is the worst to cause hearing damage as your ears have not had time to warm up."...is ENTIRELY without scientific merit. "warm you ears up"? Wow. 

Are you making some sort of uneducated reference to a "temporary threshold shift"? Please provide any scientific otoneurologic evidence of your claim. I doubt it even exists. If you can't...please stop with this misinformation! Furthermore, this is NOT why gun shot is the worst to cause of hearing damage! There is another entirely scientifically proven mechanism, that has NOTHING to do with what you mention. 

There is ABSOLUTELY no scientific merit to mijostyn's above idea.  There is no "warming up of the ears" - toxic noise level is toxic noise level - this is a biochemical phenomena that is (and still partially incompletely) understood, but CAN be prevented.

Partial reference to the above:
Mechanisms of noise-induced hearing loss indicate 
multiple methods of prevention 
Colleen G. Le Prell a,*, Daisuke Yamashita c, Shujiro B. Minami c, 
Tatsuya Yamasoba d, Josef M. Miller

Complete scientific references (hundreds) available on request.

I listen as loud as the room will let me.
I got rid of the popcorn ceiling recently as it had some asbestos . I knew it would take the sound down a notch. 

It will be a challenge to get the room in order.

Each music experience is different, biologically we adjust to volume by concentrating on that part of the sound that includes voice. This makes us more able to distinguish voices from background noise.  In hifi terms however you lose upper level and lower level perception, hence the old 'loudness' button which increased these progressively as you decrease volume. Thus for each recording there will be an optimum. I have 2 subwoofers that can be adjusted from the seating position, on most recordings I end up adjusting both the cut off frequency and the volume of the subs, as well as the main volume. So comfortable and clear overall average volume varies between 75 and 88dB at my seating position.

I'd be curious to know how many among us experience tinnitus regularly.
While there are factors other than exposure to loud noises that can cause it (heredity, high blood pressure, etc), it appears that our ears tell us what a suitable volume level for listening is and it is very likely much quieter than we thought/think it is/was.