Have you noticed as your system improves?


I have been working on making improvements to my system since 2021. (I got away from it for 10 years so the rig sat silent all that time and aged out) I have replaced my speakers twice in 2021 and 2024, my DAC, DDC, All the cables, speaker wire and PC’s. I added a streamer and ALSO the preamp/dsp processor is new. Just got a new amp in May. I have made upgrades to my wired internet access with switches, LPS and better cabling and Enos filter. I have an Audience Front Row Reserve USB cable on the way to complete that signal chain. The only thing not new is my CEC CD transport, it still works and sounds great. I have put a great deal of time and effort into my room acoustic treatments too.

 

So here’s the thing, and it’s been consistent once it all got settled and broken in. I don’t listen as loud as I did before all this or along the way. Not because it sounds worse but because it’s not necessary to hear deep into the recordings anymore. The resolution, PRAT, detail, soundstage is all there, and its really good. It’s a collective level of enhancements to achieve this. I want to preserve what hearing I have left, yet I am enjoying the music much more now, it simply just sounds better with out all the volume required before to hear what was going on. I used to have to turn it up to get it to sound good. Not anymore. Has this happed to you too?

128x128fthompson251

When working, and just have it on, it's around 60db, doing some critical listing, 80-90 db. Sometimes, I want the house to shake, to have the neighbors have a listen. 

100+ db happens at times, but usually I'm moving around the house wanting to feel the music. 

My system really starts to wake up around 80db. I go one or two notches on the volume, it feels like the speakers are pumped with adrenaline, fully waking up.

I’ve found that the constant adjustment of volume is absolutely essential to my listening sessions, because every song and it’s delivery as a recorded track is different - some begin very softly to explode into incredibly loud and dynamic highs, others maintain a steady output all the way through; some songs are intended to be played loud and brash, while others are so nuanced, they are sung like a whisper, as in Inger Marie Gundersen’s ‘Sebastians waltz’. The range of adjustment I make between those two may be as much as ten decibels. Tracks have differently recorded volume levels - I cannot listen to ‘bohemian rhapsody’ at the same level I listen to Tori Amos’ ‘icicle’; and I generally listen to almost all classical music at a higher level than most other genres. For the full impact of its performance, I listen to tchaikovsky’s violin in D by Perlman and Ormandy at about the same level as I do with ‘bohemian rhapsody’. Occasionally, I even adjust the volume between tracks on the same album, sometimes up or down by just a decibel. The starting track of ‘Friday night in San Francisco’ has to be heard at a higher volume level, but it starts much more gently, so that balance has to found at the very beginning of the track. I guess what I am trying to say is that the realistic experience of each and every track I play is so very determined by volume control. 
 

In friendship - kevin.

I have a question related to this topic:

My current speakers have a sensitivity of 86db *Dynaudio Evoke 20".  I am curious about getting (and building) the CSS Criton 2TDX MTM which has a sensitivity of 90db.  My question is: "would the increase in sensitivity lead to better sound at low volumes?   Is the sensitivity related to how the speakers perform at low volumes?

Yes…. This happens if one is making the right moves for system upgrades (components and cables). 
 

Better/improved equipment should mean more resolution and less noise. 
Lowered noise, particularly from better cables, allows one to listen and be satisfied at a lower volume due to the increase in resolution and the lowering of noise. 

Yep. Generally listen in the mid 70s now but occasionally like to turn it up.