Does It have to be loud?

I like to listen at the level I imagine the music would be played at if it were a live performance. I’m listening to John Fahey play acoustic guitar right now (with a pickup and amp, it sounds like, on his record of hymns, "Yes! Jesus Loves Me"), and after reading this got out my SPL meter and read about 80 dB on the loud parts.

I like orchestral music to be loud in the loud when it should be, of course. Of course there’s a lot of dynamic range in orchestral music. I wonder what concert hall SPLs are like.

A lot of the 50s and 60s-era acoustic jazz I like doesn’t need to be very loud to be enjoyable because it’s not too difficult to distinguish among four or five instruments.

Now I’m curious and will test myself and the music to see what works.

What’s being measured, average SPL or peaks? And how measured, e.g., test tone, music?

Just put on "The Dave Brubeck Quartet in Europe," and Brubeck's big piano chords are peaking at 80-83 dB, and the applause at the end of each track is irritatingly loud at 85 db. It seems I need the volume up a bit to hear the bass, although that might be a deficiency of my system or (rather small 12.5' x 15') listening room.

A lot of not mentioned things are the type of music one likes (though a few if the recent posts DO mention what type of music being discussed in the dB comment) It is easy to have realistic volume listening to a solo artist playing an acoustic guitar. Same for piano, or even Classical chamber music at relatively low SPL
But them you have Death Metal. That expected dB is 100? Also the amount of bass. Particularly low bass, gut massage bass.. adds a LOT to the dB meter. So folks WITH a sub, or strong bass output speakers will have a higher dB than folks playing the SAME MUSIC without a sub or prodigious bass output

In large Classical, and in Opera, only the climaxes are really loud..
(thus my personal 80dB for opera climaxes)
So some of the disparity of folks playing levels is ’what they play’.
I seldom play Heavy Metal! And little Hard Rock.
The vast majority of what I play is small combo Jazz, Small scale Classical.

One other point is nothing is lost playing at lower levels with good equipment. (though when I hit the bottom, like extremely hushed passages in an orchestral piece and the music is too soft to actually hear well, yet the loudest are louder than I want to play at,, Talk about dynamic range.. But that is rare.. My latest cable upgrade made this more of a problem, though like I said, only rarely and particularly on large scale Classical.)

I listen at 50 to 60dB measured at listening chair.
70dB is pretty loud and I only rarely play music that loud, and 80dB peaks is as loud as I ever play music at home.(mainly opera climaxes.)

Are you using a real meter or one of those gimmicky phone apps? Is it set to fast C-weighting or A-weighting? Is your meter placed near your head?