With my latest audio setup, I seem to be able to really crank *down* the volume and still appreciate the dialogue and effects in a movie. As an experiment, I tried to see how low I could get the volume and still feel like I was able to comfortably hear all of the dialogue in a movie like Too Gun Maverick or La La Land without turning on subtitles.
With an ambient background of about 26-27 dB A-weighted in my HT room, I find that I can watch comfortably late at night at 35 dBA averages (-50 on the receiver) and comfortably follow the dialogue but not comfortably at -55 dB (but dialogue still seems to be 32-33 dBA).
These numbers seem pretty low to me and I confirmed the numbers with a calibrated SPL meter.
I am curious what everyone else’s threshold is? It is OK to do this sighted since lip reading may allow lower thresholds to be met.
Separately, I imagine the question to ask is how many dB above ambient you need. I feel as if 6-7 dB over ambient is doable with 10 dB above ambient being very comfortable.
With an ambient background of about 26-27 dB A-weighted in my HT room, I find that I can watch comfortably late at night at 35 dBA averages (-50 on the receiver) and comfortably follow the dialogue but not comfortably at -55 dB (but dialogue still seems to be 32-33 dBA).
These numbers seem pretty low to me and I confirmed the numbers with a calibrated SPL meter.
I am curious what everyone else’s threshold is? It is OK to do this sighted since lip reading may allow lower thresholds to be met.
Separately, I imagine the question to ask is how many dB above ambient you need. I feel as if 6-7 dB over ambient is doable with 10 dB above ambient being very comfortable.