Low level listening

Minutes after my last post. I took out phone an used sound meter checked. Thats a little loud for me. I would now say mid 70s average. most of the time with an occasional fun time. I did need to turn up volume nob on LRS some, but between Cherry amp and tube goodness from Freya+ I was more than satisfied with every CD I played weather John Hiatt, Zach Williams, Uriah Heep,, or Spocks Beard.

One of the other factors-- didn't see it mentioned- is the level of ambient noise in the listening room. My room, without adding additional window treatment which I have- registers in the very low 30 dbs, "C" weighted-- I'm on a quiet residential street with little traffic. 

That translates into even more musical information being revealed by the system without having to compete with a noisy background. And is a pretty simple measurement to make and take steps to address, if necessary. 

Several mentioned about the ISO 2003 Equal Loudness Contour (ELC). In the following, I will show you how to translate those curves into practices, i.e., use the notion to program the EQ presets in whatever the player you have. I used foobar2000 as the example but the notion can be adapted to any freq. bandwidth you have in the EQ. I have been using these presets listening to music for some time especially low-level listening at night and the experience is great.

It has much more to do with noise floor than one would ever have thought. High eff speakers used with too much power are problematic as well since there is a fixed noise floor on any component and when a powerful amp is putting out small amounts of power on very sensitive speakers your sn ratio drops dramatically. This crushes dynamics and makes the output seem dull and not separated from the noise floor or worse yet switching distortion from imbalanced complimentary devices.

The other thing I find is unless your gain structure is worked out well and you have volume pot on your preamp or source up around 12 o'clock or higher you are loosing SN and dynamics. 

Easy solution is an autoformer VC. Unlike a pot you do not burn signal through resistance to attenuate to a listening level. Burning signal through resistors creates noise. 

Just reiterating about Magnepans and low-volume listening.

I had the LRS (first edition) and switched to the 1.7i, they definitely sound better to me at lower volume levels, either with, or without a pair of REL T7/x subs in the mix.  Low to medium volume for me.

Same room, same gear, driving CSS Criton 1TD-X stand-mounts and I find I want those babies cranked up.  If I want to listen loud they are much better than the Maggies.

FWIW, the 1TD-X have more definition, clarity, "air" or whatever, they just sound better and I can more easily pick out the individual instruments/voices.  Bass is much better defined w/wo the subs.  Bass tone is definitely better. bells, triangles, cymbals sound more defined and natural.  Singers are right there

The 1TD-X are less than 1/2 the cost of the Maggies and will fill a small/medium room with sound.  They are as inefficient as the Maggies and need lots of juice to get them going.  Just my 2 cents.