How loud do you play music?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07558DPKN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought the above Sound level meter which give out peak reading.

It tuned out that peak db is around 85 db at my listening chair.

From time to time I got over 90db but I found the sound to be too loud.

But last night I recorded 105db while playing

https://www.amazon.com/Bernstein-Suite-Candide-Meditations-Divertimento/dp/B00000JXY1 .


There is some behind story for this.

About one week ago after swapping some IC cables, I started hearing ground hum.

At first I guessed that there must be some problem with IC cables but not.

Thus I pulled back two big 2KW isolation transformers that I had kept for 20 years.

I had not used them for last 7 years since they are heavy and taking lot of space.



With those two isolation transformers in Line Magnetic SET amplifier and power supply of Lansche 4.1 speakers, 80% of ground hum disappeared.

I bought one more 450W isolation transformer from Amazon and set it up with my EMMlab DAC2 and now almost 90% of ground hum are gone.

The amazing thing is that some digital sheen is also gone after setting up three isolation transformers.

I bought 2 packs of 20 magnetic cores.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BWC5ZTW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I put them on digital, IC and speaker cables.

Now I can play music above 100db without ear aching hardness.

The only drawback of magnetic cores is that it may sound less open or slightly less dynamic.

But I am comfortable with the round and musical sound after putting three isolation transformers and 30 magnetic cores.

2 packs of 20 magnetic cores cost me 24 $ including tax.

This is the best value tweak that I had done on my system.

Thomas