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
I consider a peak of 95 dB at my listening position loud. I would never listen to the music that loud, but I would turn it up that loud to show the system off, and/or to test out components. I usually listen in the high 70s to mid 80s (dB). With a speaker that puts out good bass you should be able to do all the shaking you want without having to output ear damaging dB levels (or you could always go with a dedicated sub).

As far as shaking shelves and other stuff, that is just a good way to destroy your hearing...
When my ear wax melts! Just kidding. Listening to loud
music show not only be your concern. Hearing loss is also
attributed to where you live. City or rural desk job or
constuction worker and other factors in the day.
We have listen and watched movies for 20 yrs. at the 100 to
110 db with peaks exceeding 120db. I have a hearing test
every year and in this time a 2% loss in the 20 yrs.
A fun thing this summer as I was married. We had a party
afterwards and a pair of JBL 4676A-2 in the lawn. These
speakers where playing all day long at 136db and the
majority of the people sat in the seats and nobody complained the next day. We all could hear one another
whisper because we were screaming all day. What next a
V chip for speakers so they dont damage your ears
Im 27, and I prefer to listen to most music about 65-70db (listening position).
When I do crank it up, I rarely go much more than about 80db at the listening position... and 80+db often seems too much.

Will
Hi

a link to a post on another forum I jsut posted re this topic

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/652982/ShowPost.aspx
Seems to me there is some difficulty with what a dB is and how it relates to the ability of the human ear, and hearing. 80dB is not very loud at all, but then is 150db loud to a jet mechanic? Not to me- I wear ear phones.

The source may PEAK at 120-150dB, but real music is not a peak measurement, it's dynamic, soft vrs. loud, that is the output level I speak of, not some constant number that means nothing to the listener's enjoyment, or real world or live listening levels.

I wonder if all the musicians on the planet that play live shows at 150dB car hear, um, yes, and some of them own very nice ultra high end systems and tell the diff. when a particular note was missed.

Hmm?