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Full detailed sound at 30 - 40 - 50 dB

I love the nuance you can hear when listening to music at loud volumes, but unless no one is home, it’s not considerate or feasible to listen at such high volumes. Plus I just had a baby so everyone is always home and volume levels are limited to 40ish dBs. 

Any recommendations for getting the most detail at these volumes? Additional gear or recommended integrated amps?

My NAD 7175PE has a loudness button which boosts the treble and bass a little, and that certainly helps things in the Kitchen. 

My living room amp is a Rega Brio-R which doesn’t have any tone controls. 

Any thoughts? Thanks!
leemaze
tketcham
291 posts
 

I second wolf_garcia’s suggestion; the Schiit Loki Mini would work really well as a "loudness" switch. Set the desired attenuation/gain for each tone control level for quiet listening and then you can use the bypass switch to go "straight wire" when you’re listening at typical volume levels. Only drawback is that with the Brio there isn’t a tape monitor feature so you’d be limited to using the Loki for only one component; or one component at a time. :-)

Regards,

Tom

PS: Open back headphones are also a good solution. It's what I used when we had a baby in the house.

seikosha
218 posts
 
30,40, and 50db are pretty quiet. I bet many listening rooms have at 30db of background noise before music has started playing.  I listen at pretty low levels and it wasn’t until I got a tube based high efficiency setup before I could truly enjoy music at lower listening levels.  It made a world of difference.
freediver
1,189 posts
 
seikosha I think you just pushed me into buying new speakers!
scorpio1951
189 posts
 
Get some good headphones. 
gdhal's avatar
gdhal
1,641 posts
 
Get some good headphones.
+1

The quiescent noise floor in my listening room at best is 30db (measured). Personally and IMO, anything music wise lower than 50db wouldn't be worthwhile to listen to from an enjoyment perspective. Background while having conversation about something unrelated to music perhaps. 

Any recommendations for getting the most detail at these volumes?
Yes. Assuming you want to use speakers and not headphones, sitting closer to the speaker by a few inches can be helpful. In my case I like to listen at times in the low 90's, but usually find myself backing off to the mid to low 80's as it gets into the late evening. At one point I positioned myself about 8 inches closer to the speaker (I'm 7 feet away now) and the 8 inch difference was enough for me to lower the decibel range (again measured) by about 2.5. Even a 2.5 db decrease in decibels can be helpful at times.
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