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How loud is loud?

Seems like a rhetorical question, but I'm curious what other folks think is "ok, now that's loud"

For me, if something's hitting 100dB as measured from where I'm seated while listening, and not just for a brief moments, but with some regularity, that's loud.

I used to listen at higher average volume than I do these days. Typically, I'm finding that at the right volume, the recording is more nuanced then when it's running full throttle.

If I'm not mistaken, the late Peter Walker observed that every recording has it's one correct or optimum playback level. I think generally he was correct, though once we are willing to forge optimum there's a range of acceptable.
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timlub
2,042 posts
 
I know my wife walks by regularly and says.... "That's so Loud!"
I normally listen around 85db to 90db average, peaks at 95...

121db is the threshold of pain
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,013 posts
 
Tls49:
Actually, that is the sensitivity spec. And yes, I know many seemed
to be confused about this, and even some manufacturers list it as efficiency,
however here is the difference, Efficiency vs. Sensitivity.
Ah, excellent point. Thank you for correcting me! It should have been obvious that efficiency is in %. You got me!
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
thanks for catching that typo Al re. the dB drop per doubling of the distance. I've done this calculation many times here on Audiogon & have always used 6dB such as this post/thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1076310141&openusid&zzBombaywalla&4&5#Bombaywalla.
this was a typo on my part.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Al,
I've observed that as the system and recording quality improves it "expands" the usable listening spectrum. You are able to listen at higher levels comfortably, but lower volume listening is much improved as well. The urge to want to crank it up is diminished.
Charles,
joseph54
7 posts
 
Think what you like about the Grateful Dead, but they had some of the finest sound systems that I have heard. Sometimes I wished that they were louder but then realized that they were playing with sufficient volume but the sound was so clean that it did not seem as loud as it was. Following the Radio City Music Hall shows in 1980 their engineer, Dan Healy, mentioned in an interview that the sound system they used for those shows was 'capable of human damage' and yet I thought those shows could have been louder. When the sound is nice and clean it can be played plenty loud and it just sounds.....perfect.
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