What do you consider "loud" for your system?

A person shouldn't present their personal anecdotal experience as a recommendation for the rest of the population. A few people have smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day and lived into their 90s, but that is hardly a foundation for telling others that smoking doesn't have a risk of lung cancer and other cardiopulmonary diseases. Most people suffer serious problems after years of smoking. You can substitute a number of other exposures in which the average person suffers damage while a few lucky ones don't.

The medical community and OSHA have good studies on the issue of how loud is too loud. NIOSH recommends that the average continuous exposure not exceed 85 dB and OHSA's PEL (permissible exposure limit) is 90 dB. As volume increases, the exposure time decreases -- OSHA says 100 dB exposure should not exceed 15 minutes. Most employers with loud work environments require employees to use hearing protection.

For my home listening these days, 80 to 85 dB is plenty loud for me. In fact, I rarely go to live rock concerts these days and use hearing plugs if I do attend one. I've even walked out of a few simply because the levels were so loud they were uncomfortable.

@mlsstl Thanks for that post. And yes, anecdotal experience is hardly a basis for personal choices. I can't tell you how many people I advise to quit smoking who have to tell me how Aunt Sophie smoked 6 packs a day, lived to be a 110 and was never sick a day in her life. The funny thing is that they often tell me this as they sit there wheezing from emphysema. The point being, folks often latch onto anecdotes that support what they want to believe and hold onto them even after the evidence (wheezing) has proven them wrong.

And while I think our perceptive tolerance to loud sounds can be attenuated to a degree, I doubt that 'warming up' our ears has any effect on attenuating the potential for damage.

I also disagree with this statement:

"If one can't listen at 95 dB comfortably it is most likely because something is distorting."

A pure tone at sufficient volume can become unpleasant and damage your hearing as well. Certainly distortion will make things worse, but I've got a pretty nice system and listening to even well recorded and well performed music above 95 dB gets old real quick. That's just me.

But, my apologies to the OP. He wasn't asking us for a lecture on hearing damage. I should not have brought it up.

A good system usually will not sound loud....until it starts to distort...and then hopefully it will sound loud and you can turn it down while it is still running. 

A "good" system can sound annoyingly loud well before distortion sets in, to think otherwise is foolish. My main listening rig is a 12wpc amp with 99 db speakers that will play loud and clean using a few watts 9 feet from my ears...In the pro live stuff I do I never push the systems to distortion and they can be VERY loud for large room coverage...that's why the speakers are mounted well above the heads of people in the seats nearer the systems.

Well I can't speak to every system. I think there are many people who blog imagine that they have a good system.... PA systems are in fact loaded with distortion...