"High SPLs by the way do certainly not make for listener's fatigue, not even for female ears,"
It depends how high the SPL and the sensitivity of the individual's ears.
It is well documented on other threads here and elsewhere that prolonged exposure to very high SPLs can damage hearing. That's a lot worse than fatigue! So some degree of caution is wise.
I do agree though that it is possible to go much louder on a good system with no or little additional fatigue though. |
The argument that people play their music too loud is flawed. If you were to measure SPLs in a small venue of unamplified musicians, say a jazz or folk group, you might be surprised at how high the peak levels, not the average, are. Similarly, a full orchestra can reach very high levels on some works. Even a string quartet can be quite loud. Ever sit twenty feet from a guy wailing away on his drum kit?
Maybe what's really happening is people are listening to distortion that's too loud. Odd order distortion gives false loudness cues. Remove it and you can listen at higher levels without realizing it.
Many loudspeakers are designed for an even tonal balance around 85 dB or slightly less. Speakers that don't lose detail and significantly vary in frequency response relative to the Fletcher-Munson law at different levels can avoid such limitations. |
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". |
Detlof,
I can agree with that! |
sound pressure level is a measure of stimulus intensity.
there is support in the journals for an optimal level of stimulus intensity and complexity. the optimal level for an individual is related to personality factors and the physiology of one's nervous system.
thus, it should be no surprise that the population of music listeners will contain varying comfort levels for maximum spls.
it has nothing to do with realistic levels and everything to do with personal taste.
i find anything above 85 db as unpleasant, regardless of the performance of a stereo system. when i go to audio meetings, i usually tell the host to lower the volume.
comfort before realism makes sense. |
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. |
aw detlof, why not just ignore him or at best write: YAWN (: |
Learsfool: Interesting that you should take my comment as referring to musicians such as yourself. Instead, I intended my comment to refer to people who attend concerts and do not play instruments in their home, and therefore have little or no experience with how the dynamics are changed within a small space.
Your comment notwithstanding, I would suggest that most non-musicians do indeed have no idea of the sound levels of instruments played in a small space such as a home.
For example, I believe that most people who have never heard a violin or piano played by a competent musician in their living room have no idea of the dynamics of which that instrument is capable in a small space.
Similarly, even most people who do have a piano at home have no idea of the difference in dynamics that would result if their piano was replaced by a concert grand.
I would also suggest that most people have no idea how loud instruments played in a home sound compared to the level at which most home stereos are played. The story told by Unsound is particularly interesting in this regard, since he said that his friend was a musician, and even he was astonished at the relative difference in sound level between his instrument and the stereo system.
Let me further suggest the following: Like a musical score, the written word is often ambiguous and susceptible of multiple interpretations. Most people learn relatively early on that if their interpretation of someone else's words results in the sense seeming "bizarre," there is usually another, and more likely, interpretation that makes more sense and does justice to the speaker's intelligence and intent.
And most people also learn early on as part of their basic social-skills training that it is often useful to think for a moment what that other interpretation might be, before blurting out that the speaker has said something "bizarre." |
Jimjoyce25 - nice comments. I am very sorry indeed for the misunderstanding, and the subsequent "blurt" I made. I really need to quit reading and posting stuff so late at night, but that's usually the only time I have to do it. Agree 100% with your post. As I have said before, it's a good thing I became a musician instead of a writer....enjoy the music! |
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. |
So true, Detlof, hope you didn't have that last sentence copyrighted because I will be quoting it in discussions. |
Now we're getting somewhere! |
Learsfool---You are a gentleman, thank you for your kind words.
I think this subject has something to do with the illusion created by our minds in the listening process and wanting our systems to sound "real."
When people say that their system makes the players sound like they're in the room, we sort of know what they mean (and at some level we want the same thing).
But having a string quartet playing in my living room at concert volume would probably send me running into the basement!
And so, when we confront the illusion of a system playing a recording with the reality of an actual player in the room (as in Unsound's experiment), my guess is that something in the mind has to give. |
the problem isn't sound pressure level, per se. i had the experience of being in a room with two violinists playing bach's d double violin concerto. it was not especially loud, but the sound of the violin was unpleasant. i could listen to a flute at 85 db , or a french horn at 90 db and i would not mind.
thus the issue is quality of sound and timbre not necessarily loudness. |
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". |
Violins have a lot of overtones between 2 and 7K (these can be significantly louder than the fundamental - it is quite normal that in certain situations you can find this instrument strident or unpleasant (especially loud as the overtones are not transients but continuous).
*sigh* - Audiophiles need to recognize that musical instruments are designed to convey all kinds of sounds - including stressful or unpleasant sounds and feeling - even explosions and war. Music is not purely a contest in making the most "pleasant" sound. Any system that makes everything sound pleasant is robbing you of a whole dimension to music. |
"Audiophiles need to recognize that musical instruments are designed to convey all kinds of sounds - including stressful or unpleasant sounds and feeling - even explosions and war. Music is not purely a contest in making the most "pleasant" sound. Any system that makes everything sound pleasant is robbing you of a whole dimension to music."
That is a very true and excellent point!
Still, practically, its hard to discourage someone from going for "pleasant".
After all "pleasant" infers pleasure and who doesn't want that, even if it does infer a watering down or artificial filtering of reality in this case to achieve it?
The best situation is for your system to be able to reproduce things as realistically as possible, even producing very high SPLs when demanded, but then being able to just turn down the volume as well when needed if things still start to become unpleasant after a while. |
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. |
All good points in the last several posts. I would add, though, that we should keep in mind that the purpose of a good audio system (and the recordings it is playing) is not to transport the musicians into our room, it is to transport us to the concert hall.
In certain situations, of coure, that is a distinction withouut a difference, such as perhaps a recording of jazz musicians or a night-club singer performing in an intimate space. But on recordings of ensembles and performances such those we might listen to in large concert halls, I don't think that the fact that we listen at less than "musicians in the room" volume levels represents a compromise.
Regards,
-- Al |
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 |
I just turn the volume down just before my ears start to bleed or the threshold of pain sets in.
I do not need a db meter giving me worthless meter readings any more than I need to know how many bpm my heart is doing whilst doing the horizontal hokie cokie, vertical if one is a bat (probably).lol.
I need to fill the room because I listen 27' away from my speakers. You have to suffer for your art.Just like my friend that broke her ankle wearing 7" or was it 10" high heel shoes?
Crank the music up! live life to the max!
Meanwhile to 'Rachel Stamp' @85.34694db.....zzzzzzzzzzz
Seeing the Colorado Rockies was as loud as a rock gig! |
Good points Detlof and Shadorne. The real instruments are dynamic and have overtones and (don't forget) undertones depending upon which instruments and notes you are talking about. Cello or Acoustic guitar will sound louder in lower mid, since undertones extends in the bass region. Similar to violins (as Shadorne mentioned) have overtones sounding louder than fundamentals. So then it goes back to proper and 'complete tones' reproduced cleanly by a system ( that can do that) will sound actually louder while listening. When you measure actual SPL, it is not that loud (numbers) at all. I measure when my daughter plays a guitar. the sound fills up a room, but when measured, it is a 'low' number relative to what you thought it might be. Drums (and some wind instruments) are different story. They do go high in SPL in real life, when struck hard. But when using light strokes, it sounds loud due to tones/undertones/overtones SPL differences.
This phenomena is one of the main reasons why some system sounds (close to) real and most don't. |
Interesting to see that many here listen at lower levels as they've aged , you'd thing if we were losing are hearing we'd have the levels up . |
We listen at lower levels because we don't want to get our hearts pumping and blood pressure up (not without the cardiologists permission).
Actually, I have found that I like listening at lower volume. I have gravitated toward tube gear and horn-based systems and these are much better sounding at low volume than at high volume levels. |
