I'd say 99.99% people do not listen at 85dB or above level. I tested one of the BMR harmonic distortion at 90 dB (OmniMic is accurate in dB reading) and I have to wear ear protection. In my Home theater, I usually listen at 65 dB with some scenes the volume would be higher. Before I actually use a dB measurement tool, I don't really know how loud I'm listening. When Dennis and I did the Capital Audio Show last November, he was demoing the Tower's super bass capability by turning the volume way up to shake the room. When we switch to regular track, we forgot to turn down to the normal volume, that instant, the Tower was driven by full power of the NC400 in the demo room. Every one was shocked because of the super loud volume and also the clean clarity of the sound. We immediately turn down the volume to "normal" to not shock everyone. That is to say for a very short instant (almost like a reflective thing), extremely loud volume can shock us to cause reflective action. The high output higher frequency is.....
65db is pretty meek. I think quite a few people listen well beyond that. I can even imagine such low volumes for my best times.
I regularly listen at SPL levels averaging in the High 80's, (even from time tome low 90's) and peaking at 100db or more.
Remember ( I know you know this but for others who are new) SPL is reduced with distance so at 4meters or so you need more capability in 1meter refence to provide high output.
I check my SPL regularly and am very familiar with my volume levels.
That said there is a difference between the SPL in a SWEEP and the cumulative SPL or room equilibrium state of pink noise. They are not the same thing at all. C, B, Z, A or whatever weighted averaged SPL is much lower than a RAW sweep.
That said I may be concerned about the compression as in louder sessions I seem to become far more sensitive/aware of subtle quality issues.
I believe the review mentioned 10% HD at 100hrz - that is not in the data, (I see 1%@86 & 2.5%@96 there which is good). I see much less. It hits 2nd order 10% at 70hrz and 3rd order at 10% at 60hrz all at 96db levels.
I am very familiar with the SB acoustics woofer measuring higher levels of HD when pushed hard- it is not really a beastly bass oriented woofer. I don't think that presents the issue that many would like to think and certainly it has been covered over and over again that this is not a well understock aspect of loudspeaker performance. Who knows. It is easy to measure so the testing is commonplace, I firmly believe that that is all we know - it is easy to measure. Toole covers this, Geddes did some testing and found that in waveguided tweeters very high HD levels were not an issue but edge diffraction and increasing turbulence there at higher SPL was. We don't see this tested because it is very hard to test. IMD is not tested often as it is very difficult to test.
-I'd much rather know how this affects the performance but it is hard to test well.
I have a pair of BMR's available to test now and have heard only a few tracks so far. Let's see what is what here over time.
As of now they are very wide as to be expected and the effect is very very nice.
I can't see why anyone would absorb any of this beyond normal room furnishings typical of a comfortable space. This is a speaker purposely designed to fill the room with natural diffusion. I could see using diffusers as Floyd Toole recommends in his book and skipping any sort of absorption. That will only screw up the very well balanced wide directivity and resulting lush sense of room filling sonics.
If the directivity seems overly wide this may not be the right speaker for the intended buyer. If you like wide this is it. It is also clearly extremely sophisticated sounding - as in no question I am excited to hear more.
One thing I will note is that my Revel M126be while smaller, seems to be more dynamic on peaks - it actually is able to startle me more than any bookshelf I can remeber. It is also a clearer- cleaner sounding speaker. It also doesn't quite fill the room as fully and dare i say "magically" as the BMR. That room filling quality seems to be the BMR's money hour and I can see why. We will see what comes with more listening and some testing with measurement gear.
I expect (unlike my R3 and M126be shootout where the R3 lost easily) that "choosing" a favorite over the M126be and BMR is going to be very hard and maybe not possible. I also have the JBL 4309 and L82 here and the M16.
Say
@hardisj when you do the compression test what amp are you using there?