Why is louder always better/preferred

[Neuro]

It is not speculation that the brain's frontal lobes constantly guess what we should have heard based on context and experience. When we listen, we don't always hear everything that is said. Apart from sight, we cannot look once more at the object. All hearing is in real time. Qualified guesses according to Gestalt psychology happens constantly, especially in very reflexive environments. With increasing age, guessing increases due to high frequency loss and reduced ability to distinguish words/sounds in dense word/sound flow. The guessing is not always correct.

 

[movehome]

Louder isn't always better for me. If the mastering is loud, then cranking the volume often makes it more painful to listen to. The music is louder but doesn't actually sound better.

When the music is mastered well with high dynamic range though, that's when cranking it makes the music really shine.

 

[amirm]

I think the OP needs to be qualified further to say why *audiophiles* consider louder better in testing. They do so because they hunt and search for low level detail/air/etc. that is much more audible at higher levels. I run into this all the time including when I just just tested Schiit Freya+ where its tube setting is much louder. Dropping its level and matching it with other modes substantially reduced/eliminated that effect which it initially had.

An average person's reaction to such a comparison may be very different. I know that my wife would just complain that the louder is "too loud!"

 

[Soandso]

The guessing is not always correct.

In addition to our "guessing" not always being correct I seem to recall reading that some ascending auditory pathways involved in speech recognition, which was given as guessing's context, are not always the exact same neurological connections involved in music perception. Since am on a tablet and not a keeper of digital files I have no ready reference to cite or expostulate about this difference right now, so pardon my non-specificity.

Last night I was listening to some of African trumpeter Hugh Masakela's recordings. Being myself born and reared in the United States obviously that for certain African influences I had no way to accurately "guess" correctly what some masked music passages would've been if it were played very loud.

So, if when we listen to very loud music and "guess" what we might have heard doesn't this mean music can not be a universal language? Or, is it actually true that vocalization and music share some, but not all, auditory pathways and that when played loud there are musical performances we have no memory basis for (ex: Rahsaan Roland Kirk or Hugh Masakela) and we suspend guessing?