Low Level Listening and Distortion

“This has changed as my systems have evolved. In the 70’s and 80’s I used to seek out opportunities to hear loud systems… I remember going to a high end store which had Klipschorn’s and enough power to crank around 110db.”
 

The JBL Century 100’s - DQ-10’s with Apmpzilla - Son of Ampzilla and modded Hafler amps cranked up to 11!  What were the big Bozak speakers from mid/late seventies?

Those were the days.

I remember the JBL Century as well. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll… yes, good sound quality… no.

I had JBL Century 100 s. Looks like many also had them in the early ‘70s.

Miss those college days and cranking the JBLs!

@mglik 

👍. it was fun! 

we all hear differently, sometimes domestic conditions require us to listen at lower volumes

some folks listen real loud (usually dealing with some level of hearing loss) - once i had a fellow come over to ’audition’ my spatial m3s at the time, really nice guy, zen healer body worker type, very educated but man, he listened sooooooo loud... i thought my head was going to explode, i literally had to leave the room

to me, when i think about low level listening, a lot of it is about the fletcher munson effect and how that is dealt with - to me, good sound has a richness and texture and warmth to it, within which details can be heard, that can be hard to accomplish at low levels

there is something about a sweet first watt, but to me it is alot about noise floor, and very low distortion throughout the range, through volume levels, whether the whole chain (and every item in it) can hold it together when spl’s rise - be it in the electrical signal or in the final transducer (cone breakup, crossover resonances, etc etc)

yes i agree, very very good systems often play loud effortlessly, without strain, without a sense of the sound being extruded, or shot at you like from a water cannon... as a defining trait