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whats your idea of loud music.

ok here' what got me thinking about all of this.

i was in a dealers show room a while back checking out his ar monoblocks(sweet)& he put some smooth jazz on for me,the maggies sounded fantastic & i asked him to turn it up to a loud volume so i could see how the maggies responded.

after he gave me a stupid look he turned it up a notch & then stepped away & covered his ears like they might rupture or something & were talking about the volume being at the point where i could of heard him fart from 5 feet away,i asked him why he wouldnt turn it up loud & he told me that he wasnt sure what i thought loud was but the volume he had was more than enough for anybody.

i also see threads where guys reccomend these low power amps that i have owned with speakers i have owned & they say that the amp speaker combination can obtain listening levels that are not only louder than anybody would care to listen but unsafe levels to boot & when i had the same gear i thought the combination was way under powered & no where near being loud.

i consider loud to be when you can feel as well as hear the music & not from sitting right in front of the rig,i also consider loud to be when things on the walls move & my coffee cup has a little ripple on top of the coffee or when the dog runs for cover,i also consider it to be not loud if somebody in the same room can talk to you from 5 feet away & be heard.

im not looking for a right or wrong answer im just curious as to what other guys consider loud to be defined as.

mike.
128x128bigjoe
kennyt
1,226 posts
 
Joe,

FWIW I am in your camp.

My stereo must be able to reproduce LOUD music for sustained periods. I have several different speakers that run from 89 DB/W/m to less, and I find my 250 WPC Proceed HPA's to be light.... If I had my way I'd run much more powewr to them.

Let's face it, I don't alwatys listen at this level, and often I WOULD like to be able to hear the person 5 feet from me, but regardless of the volume, I want it to be free from distortion, and in my experience, the amp is the biggest limiter of getting to loud volumes with speakers of this, reasonable, sensitivity...

Now if you switch to horns of 116 Db sensitivity, one watt will do you for all you want...so they say, but I personally would rather have too much amplifier power on hand than not enough any day.

As for te coffe cup, I don't get up early enough to listen to tunes... but can empathize with the idea...
warnerwh
537 posts
 
I like to be able to reproduce fairly loud listening levels when I want to. This means at least 200wpc. I also feel many people running low powered amps with average sensitivity speakers are more than likely clipping the amp once in a while, something I don't believe in. I use an Innersound ESL 300wpc at 8 or 600wpc into 4 with my Vmps RM 40's in my 12x17 room. I've noticed having plenty of power makes for a more relaxed and fuller sound on all the speakers I've owned for the last two decades.
bdgregory
1,580 posts
 
Loud to me is realistic concert level sound volume. This is not the level I listen to all of the time, but when you really want to enjoy a particular piece of music, this is the test.

For some music I listen to (prog rock, fusion, folk-rock, . .) this level will leave your ears ringing after extended listening (ie just as they will after a concert. And most certainly, you can't conduct a coversation at this level (much less hear a fart 5 ft away ;-) ).

I've had the same experiance as you with others when I asked them to turn up the volume. Normally I don't receive this from a high-end dealer though.
megasam's avatar
megasam
798 posts
 
Using a Radio Shack sound level meter I feel average (not peak) DB levels over 90db from listening position are loud.

Comfortable music listening levels average 80-85db for me.

If listening levels need to be lower than 75-80db I switch to headphones.
mechans
2,999 posts
 
Big Joe I think you are 100% right on here. I like it loud. I keep a rat shak db meter in my listening space so 90-100 db I am generally happy. Above 105 and I can get uncomfortable but play it at that level sometimes, I would say that is pretty loud. One very good buddy shares my taste and thinks the same way. I have been doing this for 30 years so I should be stone deaf if my hearing was damaged each time someone told me it was dangerous. Like growing hair where you don't want it, the loss of high frequency hearing is a natural aging process. I really don't mind soft music mind you when I am not really concentrating on the music. I just had some Sunday morning Jazz on to see what the content of the recording was (the new Monk and Coltrane) at probably 80db in an adjacent room. That was fine. I can still hear the sonic differences of different systems as well as the next guy.
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