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Can someone explain this phenomenon to me.

abdo123

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With some integrated Amps, you have to raise the volume to a certain point to reach the ‘sweet spot’. That volume at which everything opens up and is clear.

I know this is a very subjective description, but I experienced this over and over to the point where i actually think it’s a technical thing.

Now some Amps don’t have a ‘sweet spot’ and are more consistent in this regard. Sure things are more open as you raise the volume and you get more dynamic range but it’s a really smooth increase from beginning to end.

so am i just delusional or is this a real phenomenon? What contributes to this?
 

Berwhale

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Perhaps this is due to how we percieve the loudness of sound at different frequencies vs sound pressure level. Percieved loudness is measured in phons and you can see how the phons vs frequency graph gets flatter as sound level goes up in the graph below...

1606480453973.png


Graph pinched from: Hearing | Physics (lumenlearning.com)
 

Helicopter

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Perhaps this is due to how we percieve the loudness of sound at different frequencies vs sound pressure level. Percieved loudness is measured in phons and you can see how the phons vs frequency graph gets flatter as sound level goes up in the graph below...

Graph pinched from: Hearing | Physics (lumenlearning.com)

Exactly what I was thinking. My other thought was just that you're going to hear more when it's louder, and it is going to hurt and numb your ears at some point, so pretty loud, but not too loud, is going to be just about right. <- Quite subjective because the sweet spot is going to vary a lot from person to person. I infer this because some people prefer to listen at such varying levels.
 

SoundAndMotion

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Peter Walker famously said that there is one and only one correct replay volume for any given recording.
I assume he meant for recordings of non-amplified instruments. Even then, mic-ing/mixing/mastering can make the ideal volume different for different raw tracks, and therefore... I’m not sure I buy it.
 

andreasmaaan

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I assume he meant for recordings of non-amplified instruments. Even then, mic-ing/mixing/mastering can make the ideal volume different for different raw tracks, and therefore... I’m not sure I buy it.

If you assume that the correct level is the level at which the engineer mixed the recording, then it works...
 

Vini darko

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Some amps are more linear than others into the dynamic load of transducers. This can be amplified by analog potentiometers matching problems.
 

CDMC

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Combination of the ear's sensitivity at various volumes and the levels used during mastering. It has nothing to do with an amp or speaker having a sweep spot. A good introduction from the mastering side as to levels:

https://www.digido.com/portfolio-item/level-practices-part-2/

You can calibrate for the listening side and will find that most decent to well mixed recordings sound good when monitored at the levels that should be used to master.

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/establishing-project-studio-reference-monitoring-levels
 
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