Does loudness play a part in your appreciation?

@richardbrand 

I took the approach that volume should be carefully adjusted for classical music to match the live experience... and that perhaps that was also the correct volume for other music.

I had season tickets to the symphony for a decade, 7th row center. So several times I would go to the symphony and listen specific for the cues and pieces of music that were good for calibration. Something that started very quietly out of the silence and then noting the crescendos. 

I found this useful for classical music. Of course the loudness varies from recording to recording, so there is not set place on the volume control. But I found this volume was often louder than I wanted listen day to day on other music. Not that it sounded bad, just louder than I wanted. 

I attend concerts at Boston Symphony Hall and have measured loudness at my seat in mid-orchestra floor at up to 90 dB on orchestral tuttis during late Romantic pieces like Mahler or Bruckner.  

Mahler's second symphony (Resurrection) was played in the first concert after $100-million was spent fixing the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House.  Not my money, but well spent!  This symphony would surely have some of the greatest dynamic and emotional ranges in the repertoire, from pin-drop quiet to cacophony. 

The tam tams (gongs) at the end should be played so hard, they rarely get back to vertical.  Gilbert Kaplan was head of a chemical company but got himself taught how to conduct, just to play this symphony.  He has conducted it around the world and I have a performance on CD.  Not quite as good as Sir Simon Rattle, but Sir Simon is a percussionist ...

Am I missing something? Audio rigs produce microcosms of live music. There's no alternative, unless your living room is the size of the venue. Or consider how loud a trumpet is when played by a real person. Do you want that in your living room? I didn't think so.

Given that these are microcosms, it's just up to all the variables involved and there is no right way to listen. 

Absolutely right.  You can’t reproduce  a symphony orchestra In your living room. Even if you match the decibel reading level it will not sound the same.

Either my meter is broken or my ears are too sensitive, but listening continuously at 80 decibels is deafeningly loud on my system, which doesn’t distort no matter how loud I play it.