How loud do you like to play your music?

With rock and roll the bands seem to play it at one level only which is very loud and purposefully distorted.

Yeah - it is all noise today...no Stairway to Heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody anymore...since Oasis and U2 proved that hyper-compression sells there has been little else but constant monotonous noise for the last decade.

Albertporter: What is the app for the iPhone?

It's not decibel Sonofjim, below is an active link to it. It's more expensive than the fun ones but according to posts I've read from engineers it's pretty darned accurate. It's also capable of being calibrated if you want it to be like a studio tool.

http://www.faberacoustical.com/products/iphone/

Are you people measuring in dB(A) or dB(C)?

For me anything between 75-92 dB(A)depends on music, time of day and wether or not my girlfriend is home.

With the monitor/sub system I now have, I stay in the mid 80's to low 90's (continuous) range, which is also determined by the quality of the recording. This system simply lacks the impact the bigger system had & is not as much fun to listen to at higher SPL's.

This is the OTHER big factor in how loud one can go and enjoy it. It is NOT just the need to find a good clean dynamic recording that lacks distortion and compression...but ALSO the need to have a system that can play that loud effortlessly (i.e. with no more distortion than you get at 80 db).

For example the hardest to reproduce are drums: a drum set playing at around 90 db average SPL is likely to have accented peaks of around 100 db SPL, ghost notes at as little as 70 db, perhaps a squeaky foot pedal or the tail end of a crash at an even lower 30 or 40 db SPL, and on the flip side the max crescendos at the finale/end of a section/big rock fill should be around 110 to 115 db SPL. When you calculate this requirement at the typical 8 to 10 feet back listening position then you *ideally* need a speaker that can play at 120 db SPL comfortably and cleanly and without compression in order to get that relaxed "live" dynamic sound effect. It is a tall order and not many speakers can do that - so most music that you purchase has been heavily compressed - especially drums.