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How loud is loud?

Seems like a rhetorical question, but I'm curious what other folks think is "ok, now that's loud"

For me, if something's hitting 100dB as measured from where I'm seated while listening, and not just for a brief moments, but with some regularity, that's loud.

I used to listen at higher average volume than I do these days. Typically, I'm finding that at the right volume, the recording is more nuanced then when it's running full throttle.

If I'm not mistaken, the late Peter Walker observed that every recording has it's one correct or optimum playback level. I think generally he was correct, though once we are willing to forge optimum there's a range of acceptable.
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Showing 4 responses by bombaywalla

bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
For me, if something's hitting 100dB as measured from where I'm seated while listening, and not just for a brief moments, but with some regularity, that's loud.
loudness in dB SPL without stating the distance is meaningless. As you know, SPL drops approx 3dB for every doubling of the distance.
You wrote "where I'm seated while listening" - what distance is that from the loudspeaker?

For me 95dB SPL 10 feet away from the loudspeaker is LOUD. I try to keep my peaks at the 90dB SPL level (again, 10 feet from the loudspeaker).
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
bombaywalla,

When we say at seating position, I assume we measured the db using the SPL meter while seated. At least I did. This means speaker distance is irrelevant because it is measured where you are at. Simple logic.
no, I don't think speaker distance is irrelevant - it is very relevant. True, the SPL meter measures sound pressure where you are physically standing/sitting in the room but still it is at a certain distance from the speaker. If you take 1 step closer to the speaker, the SPL will go up. If you take 1 step back, the SPL will go down. If you raise yourself 1 foot off the floor, the SPL will change (I think it should go down as the distance to the speaker is more. You have to calculate the hypotenuse of the triangle which is greater than the 2 other sides).
Distance from the speaker matters.....
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
08-21-14: Sebrof

08-21-14: Bombaywalla

If you take 1 step closer to the speaker, the SPL will go up. If you take 1 step back, the SPL will go down. If you raise yourself 1 foot off the floor, the SPL will change Distance from the speaker matters.....

I believe the point of the other posters is that they give the db reading where they listen, and one step closer, one step further away, one foot off the floor are pretty much irrelevant because they don't listen from there.
OK. so you've made my point again: distance from the speaker is important - there's a very specific distance from the speaker they are listening from & measuring the SPL from.
Most think of SPL as a number - 90dB, 95dB, 105dB, etc, etc but it's a number with a distance associated with it.

Look at a speaker spec: For example: 90dB/W/m. Correct?
you've seen such a spec before, right?
how do you read this spec?
90dB SPL feeding 1W into 8 Ohms (not written but assumed to be the industry standard) & listening at 1m away.
dB SPL with a distance attached to it......
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
thanks for catching that typo Al re. the dB drop per doubling of the distance. I've done this calculation many times here on Audiogon & have always used 6dB such as this post/thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1076310141&openusid&zzBombaywalla&4&5#Bombaywalla.
this was a typo on my part.
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