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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
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,308 posts
 
If it sounds fatiguing and is not normally, then it is probably too loud.

If its not too loud but still causes fatigue and the desire to stop listening, then there are probably things happening in the reproduction that are not desirable and things will sound better at reasonable volumes if the problems are addressed.

Obviously louder is harder on the ears in general, but I would not be prepared to make any judgements about any particular volume being inherently better sounding than another.

I would say that having a naturally quiet listening room is of clear benefit in regards to being able to listen at lower volume without distraction or other external noises infringing into the listening experience.
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stehno
1,453 posts
 
Although sound thresholds vary person to person and there are very real limitations for every human ear, the most significant factor for listening pleasures is and always will be the amount of distortions that induce sonic harm into the presentation.

For example, one of the most (but not the most) serious forms of distortions inducing harm comes from inferior or no AC line conditioning. Even the most fabulous recording played at 82db on a SOTA-level system can drive one from the room after 10 short minutes without proper line conditioning.

Properly addressing this and the other sources of distortion should provide hours of listening pleasure in the 92 - 110 db range.

Obviously, these distortions inducing much sonic harm into the presentation are not something that OSHA and many others take into consideration, but should.

-IMO
abucktwoeighty's avatar
abucktwoeighty
1,079 posts
 
On the days when my wife works and I am home alone, I'll turn up the volume to near realistic levels at times. When she arrives home, I'll drop the volume quite a bit, so we can talk about the day, and I find that it is actually still too loud to hold a normal conversation without raising our voices. I had thought the volume to be rather low when I initially decreased it. After a little while it doesn't sound too low, as it did when I had turned it down. My ears adjusted. Chayro makes a valid point.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
what's more important than realistic sound pressure levels is the comfort level of the listener. if someone prefers listening at spls, never exceeding 80 db, it matter's not what is realistic or not.

the hobby is about entertainment and the only precept that matters is : enjoy yourself.
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