Wimpifikation..wonderful, a new great word, thanks Trelja.
You can buy a little program for your iPhone, a SPL-meter. I tried it out at the last symphony concert I attended. Peaks there were at around 95db (Prokoviev "Classical Symphony"). At home with the same music it was at 88db peak for me to feel happy. A good classical symphony has to be played at realistic levels to make it feel right and if I listen to a small jazz combo or voices, I want them "in my room". All else is less than satisfying for me.
Lrsky is right by the way. At least I can corroborate the findings, because when sitting down to listen, I start out more softly first and crank up the volume until it feels "right".
So insitinctivly, intuitively I obviously do the right thing here for once.
Besides, I have found, that audiophiles who listen unbearably loud, generally crank up their system too much to compensate for a lack of dynamic swing inherent in their set up. If the dynamics are realistic from pppp to at least fff you don't really have to listen at ear splitting levels to be satisfied.
Just my two cents. |
Learsfool,
Good for you to chime in. I could not agree more.
High SPLs by the way do certainly not make for listener's fatigue, not even for female ears, if you have built up a system which can take it. Anyone who says to the contrary, probably, I would surmise, does not know what is possible, always given the right software of course. |
Essentialaudio has just made a good point.
I should have said "realistic" not "high" and it it is silly to suppose anyone in his right mind would expose him or herself to constant aural exposure of over 95dbs in his own home. It were peaks I had in mind and a good system will take those easily without distortion at well over 100db level. Generally those peaks don't last long of course and ear damage will not occur under such circumstances. I have big orchestral music in mind here, not listening to hard rock at "realistic" levels, which by their very nature carry distortion to sound "right". |
OK MrT, instead of "realistic", I should have said "real life as in a given concert hall"-levels and for the rest you are stating the obvious. If you find 85db plus unpleasant, well that is your personal thing, you must however allow the thought that you either shun concert halls as places of suffering or have no real clue of what a good stereo system in the right room could sound like and again - just for the finicky and anal -I am talking peaks. That our personal tastes vary, that we should enjoy what we like and that our likes and dislikes are shaped accordingly is so obvious that you seem to me beating that dead donkey here again for the umtieth time and that is what I find a tad irksome, because, although repeated again and again by you, it teaches nothing new. |
Jimjoyce25 exactly! And it is important to note in this post, that its author speaks of dynamics not SPLs. Systems which are able to mimic the dynamics of a violin in a given room for example, not to speak of a concert grand which is practically impossible, are more rare than one might think and - now to speak of personal taste - only a system capable of mimicring at least the dynamics of strings would make my ears happy.
Most systems played "too" loud, generally lack the capability of the dynamic swings needed and the listener is tempted to crank up his gear to instinctively make up for that. |
Jimjoyce25, again I have to agree with every point you make. You are right of course. There is a difference between a string quartet playing at home or one playing full tilt boogie in the concert hall. I am well accustomed with both and players will adapt their volume to the acoustics of a given venue. So probably, when our facsimiles give us the impression of sounding "real", it is not so much loudness or SPL, but the reproduction of dynamic swings between pppp and fff (I purposely leave out the fourth f) which mimic the real thing well enough to give us the illusion of "reality". This and the palpability of the players and their instruments within the soundstage our rig is able to create.
It is, as MrTennis rightly says, also a question of "timbre and quality of sound", but above all, I tend to think that it is the proper reproduction of the dynamic swings in a given composition from barely audible to loud, within a range that does not offend our ears in our listening venue, which gives us the illusion of "reality". |
Thanks Shadorne in making those points. You are so right.
Much of the meaning of Shotakovich's string quartets and symphonies as just an example of what you are talking about would be lost, if we just turned down "the unpleasant". Or take Schnittke, some Sibelius, even classics like Beethoven or Schubert. There a plenty of examples in Jazz as well for this.
Shrill, blaring, strident sound is also widely used in opera, right back to the baroque days: Unpleasant sounds to mirror and underline an unpleasant situation so to speak. I wouldn't want to turn those moments down, even if they are longer than a couple of bars. This is not to be confused with listener's fatigue. If a system is tuned right, it can and should growl, thunder, screech, scream, blare and jar or with really deep bass scare the living s***s out of you, whenever it is musically appropriate. |
Al,
Allow me to add a little story to your excellent point:
A fiend of mine, musician herself and mother of a world famous violinist, when listing to her son through my rig, she said, "Yes, he is here with us right in the room, but not quite though, because you can feel the venue as well, so he is in a space within your room to be exact".
Regards,
Detlof |
