Fear of volume control

This point is not intended to stoke the fire of vinyl vs all other media. This is why when you are streaming, using a tape player or cd player and you have the ability to set the output level from the source you set it as high as it goes or very close. I discovered this on a dac I had with built in amp (for headphones). I found the sound stage and openness of the songs were better with dac on 10 preamp volume lower. When needed they were both at 11 (spinal tap level) and sounded great but moderate volume levels were better delivered from the source set high.

Elliot,

“the room shook with the orchestra and organ at full tilt…”

That WAS an exaggeration.

sgreg, I think that is an idiosyncrasy of your system.

Teo_audio, what in the world are you talking about?

rvpiano, I have an set of Cesar Franck's complete organ works. There are several pieces with an A0. That is 27.5 Hz. Your vision actually blurs forget about everything in the house shaking. 

Audiophiles shunned loudness compensation in the late 70's. It was felt that any analog filtering caused more harm than good which I personally believe is true. We simply played the music at the right volume.  But, now we have digital filtering which is a whole different ballgame. Once you are in numbers you can do anything you want including programming loudness compensation to match the any volume. This allows you to play a piece at lower volumes with the right balance. Unfortunately, very few processors offer dynamic loudness compensation. You have to program you own curves and select them manually.

Another thing affecting lowest volume one can satisfactorily listen at is ambient and/or steady state noise floor. This would be noise generated internally from house. Add to that outdoor noise which makes it to listening room. The higher this noise floor, the higher volume we'll need. Perhaps lower noise floors late at night are part of what makes late night listening more pleasurable. I'm so fixated on this I turn off my AC, refrigerator in adjoining room, in winter turn furnace way down.

@sns 

I’m the same. I have a furnace room with a extra refrigerator next to my listening area. Both are relatively quiet but to keep the noise down I turn the AC off. Fortunately I can do this with my iPhone after I sit down. I’m probably going to do some serious sound insulation inside the room this year and see how quiet I can make it.