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
For me it depends upon the type of music and the time of day. I can't stand louder more raucous music early in the morning. Maybe my ears just need to be warmed up first. I can also listen to smooth jazz louder than most other types of music. It might be the distortion/compression used in the engineering or broadcasting of the radio signal. My wife and I always have a volume knob battle because she likes music in the background and I like to actually listen to it. Dan
my days of blasting my music to ear bleed levels are over, but I can still, every now and then, crank it. My 2 channel, though loud, cannot get to ear bleed levels, but my music room stereo, easily can do that. With only (Nad integrated) 50 watts per, Denon DVD 2910, and Definitive Technology speakers, I can humble my tympanics. How? Very small room with low ceiling and close proximity to speakers. Listened /viewed, for the second time in a week, Cream at Albert Hall-- powerful....High decibel level...
Loud music to me in my room is when the imaging and focus muddies up at my usual listening position, which is about 9-10 ft away farfield from from my Dunlavy V's. SPLs beyond 95 db tend to do this in my room. Few dbs below that and with good recording sound is very realistic sounding.But even then I usually mostly listen at may be when the peak is at 80/85 db.
My amps never clips though- Classe CA-400s, 400 watts at 8 ohm and 800 watt at 4 ohm.
However some times I like to listen to my system when I am in my backyard, then I crank it up even louder (in the room it is easily 105-110 db) so that it sounds real when I am outside.

I too have wondered why the CDs don't have info as to what was the SPL range/peak during recording. Stereophile (magazine) recordings some time give out this info and I set the level at that db for that passage to adjust the sound. Another info I thought would be helpful to audiophile is the instrumnet loaction/s on the stage at the time of recording.
Post removed