Weseixas, in your last response to Atmasphere you acknowledge that 110dB peak is easily attainable at the listening position, which is exactly what my figures were pointing to. My 117dB number was peak, not DIN, average, RMS or anything else. By the way, the level drops 6dB per doubling of distance, not per metre, so 117dB at 1m, 111 at 2m, 105 at 4m. And, that is only one speaker, the stereo setup nominally adds 6dB to those figures, plus the listening space normally is not open; further back, reflections from side and back walls complicate any simple maths.
The end result, as Atmasphere points out, is that well over 110dB PEAK sound at 3m with the right combination of hifi gear is easy to get. To now get that in perspective, a study of the sound levels experienced by members of an orchestra, not the audience(!), playing "heavy" music only momentarily went a db or so over 120dB peak in the worst possible case. Many audio people would suggest orchestral recordings are the hardest to get "right", but from the point of view of the dynamic capabilities of the system it should be no problem at all.
So, why don't orchestral recordings typically do it (sound real)? Again, as I mentioned earlier, the answer is distortion -- the two common ways of reproducing sound both have failings.
The audiophile way: make sure at low levels that the sound is "pure", that is, low levels of unpleasant distortion, but run out of grunt and it starts to compress and fall apart as the volume increases.
The pro way: plenty of grunt from the word go, but the effort has not sufficiently gone into eliminating the subtle mechanisms that inject relatively low level but nasty distortion into the sound, at any volume -- the too frequent PA setup, BIG sound hammering at you, impossible to tolerate for anything but a short period.
(Which, by the way, is why I shudder at the thought of seeing a live show these days: once or twice in my experience the sound people knew what to do, but, as an example, for me Phantom of the Opera at the premier city production was a nightmare, at the end of the evening my ears felt like they had been bludgeoned to death!)
But, there is a third way, as some people have discovered: put together efficient speakers and reasonably powered, high performance amplifiers with a decent level of care and fastidiousness and you should have an excellent chance of getting close to the "real thing".
And, for the people who claim it is all about room treatments and precise positioning of the speakers, in my experience this is wrong too. The ear brain combination is extremely capable and tolerant; if you give your head half a chance by supplying a sufficient amount of CLEAN sound information, then it can decipher what is going on and generate the experience of "being there". What the treatment and positioning thing helps to do, I believe, is to reduce the obviousness and impact of the distortion components in the sound, a sophisticated equivalent to specialised ear plugs.
Finally, I believe firmly in the LIAR (Listening In Another Room) test -- if the system fails this then it certainly won't sound like the "real thing" anywhere ...
Frank
The end result, as Atmasphere points out, is that well over 110dB PEAK sound at 3m with the right combination of hifi gear is easy to get. To now get that in perspective, a study of the sound levels experienced by members of an orchestra, not the audience(!), playing "heavy" music only momentarily went a db or so over 120dB peak in the worst possible case. Many audio people would suggest orchestral recordings are the hardest to get "right", but from the point of view of the dynamic capabilities of the system it should be no problem at all.
So, why don't orchestral recordings typically do it (sound real)? Again, as I mentioned earlier, the answer is distortion -- the two common ways of reproducing sound both have failings.
The audiophile way: make sure at low levels that the sound is "pure", that is, low levels of unpleasant distortion, but run out of grunt and it starts to compress and fall apart as the volume increases.
The pro way: plenty of grunt from the word go, but the effort has not sufficiently gone into eliminating the subtle mechanisms that inject relatively low level but nasty distortion into the sound, at any volume -- the too frequent PA setup, BIG sound hammering at you, impossible to tolerate for anything but a short period.
(Which, by the way, is why I shudder at the thought of seeing a live show these days: once or twice in my experience the sound people knew what to do, but, as an example, for me Phantom of the Opera at the premier city production was a nightmare, at the end of the evening my ears felt like they had been bludgeoned to death!)
But, there is a third way, as some people have discovered: put together efficient speakers and reasonably powered, high performance amplifiers with a decent level of care and fastidiousness and you should have an excellent chance of getting close to the "real thing".
And, for the people who claim it is all about room treatments and precise positioning of the speakers, in my experience this is wrong too. The ear brain combination is extremely capable and tolerant; if you give your head half a chance by supplying a sufficient amount of CLEAN sound information, then it can decipher what is going on and generate the experience of "being there". What the treatment and positioning thing helps to do, I believe, is to reduce the obviousness and impact of the distortion components in the sound, a sophisticated equivalent to specialised ear plugs.
Finally, I believe firmly in the LIAR (Listening In Another Room) test -- if the system fails this then it certainly won't sound like the "real thing" anywhere ...
Frank