You're probably listening too loud


After many years of being a professional musician and spending hundreds of hours in the recording studios on both sides of the glass, I believe that most listeners undermine the pleasure of the listening experience by listening too loud and deadening their ears.

As a resident of NYC, there are a million things here that make the ears shut down, just the way pupils close up in bright light. People screaming, trucks, subways, city noise. Your ears keep closing up. Then you go home and try to listen on the hifi, but your ears are still f'kd up to get to the point. Try this experiment.

Hopefully, you can all have some degree of quiet when you can sit down and listen. Start with a record or CD of acoustic music with some inner detail and tonality. I like to use the Naim CD with Forcione and Hayden, or the piano/bass CD with Taylor/Hayden. Just simple, relaxing music. Real instruments doin' real things.

Start by sitting back and leaving the volume just a little lower than you find comfortable. Just like you want to turn it up a bit, but leave it down. Sit back and relax. I would bet that in 7-10 minutes, that "too low" volume is going to sound much louder. That's because you're ears have opened up. Now, without changing anything, that same volume is going to sound right. Step out of the room for a second, but don't talk with anybody. Just go get a glass of water and come back - now, that same volume is going to sound louder than you thought.

Sit back down and listen for a minute or two - now, just the slightest nudge of the volume control upwards will make the sound come alive - the bass will be fuller and the rest of the spectrum will be more detailed and vibrant.

Try it - every professional recording engineer knows that loud listening destroys the subtleties in your hearing. Plus, lower volumes mean no or less amplifier clipping, drivers driven within their limits and ears that are open to receive what the music has to offer.

Most of all - have fun.
chayro
I agree with Chayro. Better to start low and bring it up as needed. Part of the problem many of us face is little toy speakers and make believe woofers. Get some sizable horns and the dynamic capability of compression drivers. This enables one to enjoy the full dynamic potential of the music without resorting to overkill decibel levels. A 15 inch woofer is likewise a good idea. As the man said, you can't make 20 violins sound like a cello or 20 four inch drivers sound like a 15 inch woofer.
when i listen at sound pressure levels approaching 85 db, my wife complains that the music is too loud. she is 20 feet away from the speakers and not in the listening room.

while one may miss certain detail at, say 80 db, hopefully, the brain will fill in some of the "empty spaces". one cannot always indulge in one's passions, unchecked.

in addition, one person's "realistic level", may exceed another person's threshold of pain.
The point I was trying to make was not that people should listen at low levels. I was trying to convey that the normal deadening of the ears due to worldly noise caused us to turn up the volume more than necessary to achieve individual bliss. Even to those who like to crank it, I suggest that, by starting softer than is normal for you, you will end up with a softer overall level.
It all depends on the dynamic range of the music. A lot of my listening is to classical symphonic music, usually on well engineered recordings (meaning with little or no dynamic range compression). I would definitely feel that I'm missing out if I did not turn the volume up to some approximation of what I hear in a concert hall, and in so doing I have no concerns about effects on my hearing because average power levels are so far below the brief and infrequent peaks.

I once sat in the very front row at a concert at Tanglewood at which the BSO performed Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet." The closing passages contained probably the loudest sounds I have ever heard, aside from a 105mm howitzer that I once heard go off at a distance of about 30 feet.

While I would not want to be exposed to that sort of volume regularly, playing more typical symphonic music at less than say mid-hall volume levels I would consider to be a waste of the capabilities that I developed my system to be able to provide. With highly compressed rock music, it would be a completely different story, and concerns about my hearing would definitely be a consideration.

A good classical symphony has to be played at realistic levels to make it feel right and if I listen to a small jazz combo or voices, I want them "in my room". All else is less than satisfying for me.

Exactly!

Regards,
-- Al
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