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How loud do you like your music?

How loud do you like your music?

  • Under 70dB

    Votes: 59 20.3%
  • Around 75dB

    Votes: 104 35.9%
  • Around 80dB

    Votes: 72 24.8%
  • Around 85dB

    Votes: 35 12.1%
  • Around 90dB

    Votes: 11 3.8%
  • It has to be over 90dB to enjoy

    Votes: 9 3.1%

  • Total voters
    290

fpitas

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I never figured you to be a horn guy... What gives?
I just love all the honking :D

Seriously. Years back, a friend asked me to help him build good speakers, capable of filling his front room down to 30Hz, but 2-way. I chose the 511 horn with a quad of Peerless 830869 woofers below it in a 10 ft^3 (283 liter) ported cabinet. He does use a sub sometimes now, but the Peerless do a good job nonetheless.

It turned out well, so I decided to make my own horn-based monstrosity. For my system I got fancier and MTMed the horn with a quad of SEAS W18s, crossed to a woofer at the 110Hz baffle step.
 

goat76

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With the recommended Steely Dan song I landed at about 76-77 dB on average, at that level I think I could easily listen all day long (if I liked Steely Dan). :)

But with different recordings, the average level I prefer depends on what the particular music contains. If it's vocal-focused music I like to turn it up so that the main singer gets to a level that sounds right to me, so the average level of the music will in that case depend on how loud the vocal track is mixed in the song. It can be a similar thing with other music genres that are focused on other things than the vocalist. If I, for example, find that the bass guitar, or the guitar, or the piano, or maybe the drums are the "driving force" of some specific music or song, then when the level of that particular instrument sounds good/the best possible to me it can be the deciding factor of the average level I choose to listen to. In some cases, that level can obviously be too loud in the long run, but it would be a stretch for me to say that the mix doesn't have a good balance just because I find this particular instrument to be the "driving force" of the song. For another listener, it can be something else in the mix they focus on or maybe just the level of the full mix as this thread seems to focus on.

Sorry for making it all more complicated. :)
 

Ricardus

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Sometimes when I'm frustrated I need to put on some music to help with that, and I crank it til the frustration goes away, but generally I listen at reasonable volumes.
 
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killdozzer

killdozzer

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I just love all the honking :D

Seriously. Years back, a friend asked me to help him build good speakers, capable of filling his front room down to 30Hz, but 2-way. I chose the 511 horn with a quad of Peerless 830869 woofers below it in a 10 ft^3 (283 liter) ported cabinet. He does use a sub sometimes now, but the Peerless do a good job nonetheless.

It turned out well, so I decided to make my own horn-based monstrosity. For my system I got fancier and MTMed the horn with a quad of SEAS W18s, crossed to a woofer at the 110Hz baffle step.
I'm glad you shared this insight in your preferences and I'm happy to learn something about interesting members here. But I was kidding because your avatar makes it so obvious.
 

fpitas

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I'm glad you shared this insight in your preferences and I'm happy to learn something about interesting members here. But I was kidding because your avatar makes it so obvious.
I hoped that was the case. The avatar does make it rather plain where my audio interests lie ;)
 
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killdozzer

killdozzer

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I just want to bump this now that we reached over 200 votes. Still, my choice (just saying I wasn't mad) is the most popular and there's an even distribution for slightly more quiet and slightly more loud. We started grouping.

This would render a lot of our discussions... weeell... purely academic to put it politely. It could even make a case for kc62 being more than adequate for small up to middle rooms (depending, I guess, whose notion of small and middle you use, I admit I use what is most often used in Audioholics). There certainly are bigger numbers around, but they are often a urinating contest. Or not, some of you might disagree.

It's comforting, however, to realize we can be really satisfied with less than we usually think we need. We can buy weaker amps, we don't need high speaker efficiency, we don't need to concern ourselves with distortion at 103dB, Perlisten is NOT the only brand that'll do. :)
 
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I don't know the real sound pressure level, I can say that I prefer rather low power levels and find the high ones annoying.
 

NIN

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I listen around 15,4 feet away from my speaker in a acoustically fixed room.
The SPL depends on the music, the quality of the recording and my mood. Sometimes I listen at 60-70 dB, sometimes at 80dB and a few times 110-120 dB.
Like when I listen to Flim & the BB's - Tricycle and clipped my power amplifier (400W) to the top-speakers.
 

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NoMoFoNo

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I voted under 50db. I'm listening right now about 16 feet away from the speakers and measured the SPL using my phone. It was mostly under 40db and I wouldn't want it much louder. When I crank it up to get even 60db at listening position, I don't want to listen for long.

I'm the guy who hates how loud movie theaters get and even musical theater, if it's not something I really enjoy, grates on me at the volumes usually used.

I cannot fathom listening at 70db+ in a home system for any period of time. I'd rather have silence.
 

fpitas

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I'm the guy who hates how loud movie theaters get and even musical theater, if it's not something I really enjoy, grates on me at the volumes usually used.
I agree with that. The wonky FR and distortion drive me crazy. It's turned up loud for the "explosions as cinema art" crowd.
 

tmtomh

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I use the NIOSH SPL meter on my iPhone, I think with B-weighting if memory serves. I don't know how accurate it is, but its readings do line up pretty well with an old Radio Shack SPL meter I have.

I sit about 3M from the speakers and hold the phone just a little lower than my head (so I can look at it). For me 80dB is when it starts to feel loud, and for "normal" listening - not a quiet mellow evening and not a "turn it up and let loose" moment, I would say the high 70s is about the sweet spot for me.

I do find that I can fairly easily get accustomed to listening at a volume about +/- 5dB off of that if I listen through 2-3 songs and wait for my ears to acclimate. Anything more than that, though, and I'm constantly aware that it sounds somewhat quiet or loud - and I generally can't take anything above 85dB for more than a minute or two.
 

JeremyFife

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Generally listen around 65dB at 2.5m (phone app, used for relative reference and not measurement) ...
I'd "like" to listen 75-80 which was the question and hence my vote (75).
Pesky family and their TV :)
 

Robbo99999

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  • I'm interested in how loud you enjoy your music. For this purpose I propose A weighted, slow SPL measuring.
  • I'm also proposing a clean, well produced song that is not bass heavy to avoid subjective impressions of low frequencies (Hey Nineteen - Steely Dan).
  • Since music material varies in dB, I propose you start the SPL meter mid-song to avoid the gadget taking the silence before the song into account.
  • You can put dips and peaks into the comment. In the poll, you should enter average SPL. This is one more reason why I propose a song - to avoid having additional variations due to different material.
  • Sources, mastering, edition etc. shouldn't play a major role here. You should just turn it up the way you like it and then measure.
  • The question is about enjoying loud music, not how much you can put up with for a short period of time. It is about SPL you'd enjoy for at least the length of an album.
  • Not all smartphones are reliable, but some are. If you could just enter whether you took measures with a phone, that would be fine.
  • This is about the amount of loudness you like, so imagine you live on a prairie with no neighbors. It's about what you enjoy, not what is allowed.
  • Feel free to add numbers for movies and TV in the comments.

One other thing I almost forgot. It has to be at your listening position. If you're further away from the speakers, you'll need to go louder in order to get what you like at your sitting place, but I'm interested in what reaches you, what you actually hear.


**What motivated me; I've seen people throwing around numbers like 90-96dB and even higher, yet, nearing 80dB average is simply too much for me. I wanted to see the real-world numbers.
I haven't really measured my dB(A) listening levels of the actual tracks I listen to, but I have measured with a UMIK sine sweeps of my speakers & headphones at various normal to loud listening levels that I use, and it ranges from 75-87dB at 1kHz for a full scale 0dBFS sine wave. So this means my dB(A) listening levels of my actual tracks I listen to will be lower than this, but I don't know exactly how much lower so I voted for 75dB in the poll.

EDIT: actually, I found a couple of dB(a) measurements of my Harman EQ'd K702 headphones (using miniDSP EARS) of a couple of tracks at either typical or loud listening levels (can't remember which!), following are the pics:
Massive Attack Karmacoma A-weighted GRAS.jpg Muse Supermassive Black Hole A-weighted GRAS.jpg
So LAeq of 71-77dB, but unsure if that's at typical or loudest listening level (I should have made better notes in the file name!). 75dB vote in the poll is still reasonable assumption.
 
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Holmz

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I use the NIOSH SPL meter on my iPhone, I think with B-weighting if memory serves. I don't know how accurate it is, but its readings do line up pretty well with an old Radio Shack SPL meter I have.

I sit about 3M from the speakers and hold the phone just a little lower than my head (so I can look at it). For me 80dB is when it starts to feel loud, and for "normal" listening - not a quiet mellow evening and not a "turn it up and let loose" moment, I would say the high 70s is about the sweet spot for me.

I do find that I can fairly easily get accustomed to listening at a volume about +/- 5dB off of that if I listen through 2-3 songs and wait for my ears to acclimate. Anything more than that, though, and I'm constantly aware that it sounds somewhat quiet or loud - and I generally can't take anything above 85dB for more than a minute or two.

The ^highlighted^ part above. :rolleyes:

My observation on the numbers and perception match your’s as well.

I’ll add that above 100dB, it is only the speakers that are not distorting wildly, i.e. the ones that still sound like they are at 85dB.
You just see lips moving and cannot hear someone else’s words.
That is a danger zone, as if one turns it up to the point that they sound loud, the lower distortion systems get loud - before they sound loud.
 

tmtomh

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The ^highlighted^ part above. :rolleyes:

My observation on the numbers and perception match your’s as well.

I’ll add that above 100dB, it is only the speakers that are not distorting wildly, i.e. the ones that still sound like they are at 85dB.
You just see lips moving and cannot hear someone else’s words.
That is a danger zone, as if one turns it up to the point that they sound loud, the lower distortion systems get loud - before they sound loud.

Interesting point, and I'd have to agree. My current speakers have on more than one occasion reminded me of driving in a really well-built, good-handling car, thinking I'm cruising along at 60 and then looking at the speedometer and seeing it's at 90. It's all too easy to turn them up without realizing how loud they're actually playing.

I enjoyed my previous speakers, but they couldn't play nearly as loud while retaining the same level of perceived clean and well-balanced sound.
 
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