The "magic" listening level

[OO1]

 

 

I don't really listen near-field I am back 11 feet from the Khorns in a triangle of equal lenght, my room is treated and Eq'ed so I have great balance and a huge sound stage. It just doesn't get much better!!! I have noticed on my recordings the difference is sound quality as well as the sweet level for that recording, just kinda depends on the recording itself!!!

and the older , the better - the peak quality recordings were done between 67 and 79  -  in Germany -England mostly -that time zone was magical in sound reproduction -- the budgets that were spent were 50 times the ratio today  - a record took weeks rather than hours to make  -

 

and with the current gear - it is even better -

 

-SCOTTY - beam me back

 

 

Or maybe 62 - 79.  If you don't mind going MONO for just a moment, I have rarely heard a recording better than the c 1958 Lp "The Westminster Classical Sampler," with various generations of moving coil cartridges.  Naturally, it is not available on any format today.

 

c1974, I had a class @ SFSU (two terms) in which we toured virtually all of the recording studios in the San Francisco area, and heard many of the recordings they were making.  We noticed that when the recordings finally came out they didn't sound near as good, even on pro equipment.  Was it a problem with the Lp cutting and manufacturing process?  Or what? 

 

there were some sites in San-Franciso and later Silicon Valley that were good , but not the best at remastering  recordings

 

- so  this was just a case of a lack of remastering at the proper studios which were mostly in New York  for the USA   - http://sigmasound.com/

 

or Europe -Trident Studios in London were incredible - http://www.themarqueeclub.net/trident-studios-

 

musicland  studios in Germany were also very sough after by American and British atists -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicland_Studios

Edited March 15, 2015 by Randyh

[Matthews]

It seems almost all of my music was coming up at the same marking spot, so that's where I moved my seating position.

 

  people often ask me, "why do you have your couch here"...   "The room would be so much bigger if you moved it back to the wall".   LOL some understand, some don't.  It is in the "sweet spot"!

[jcmusic]

Canyonman, I did have my set up with my setting area at about 10 feet and it wasn't doing it for me. It happened when I moved closer. I would move in and out while listening to things and when I hit a spot, I'd mark it. It seems almost all of my music was coming up at the same marking spot, so that's where I moved my seating position.

The reason I am 11 feet back is because when taking measurements of my room that is where I got the best overall curves, and so it just makes good sense to put the LP there instead of any where else!!! 

[russ69]

... I have not been able to duplicate this in large room systems which, of necessity, usually have to be played louder.  At those higher levels there is no immersion, but rather just a big wall of sound.  Just wondering if others have experienced this.  Thoughts and comments appreciated!

Maynard    

Big systems can do the same thing but it takes a really good system and room.

[erik2A3]

Definitely a near-field listener. One of the benefits of this approach is that the listening space seems, in my instance (though I have heard others say the same thing), less of a critical role than it must in a situation where the listening position is significantly further back. The potential interference and distortion of wall, floor, and ceiling reflections are greatly diminished in the near-field, particulalrly in the case of lower SPLs, which in our room have the subsequent advantage of being less likely to excite room modes in the range of a couple of hundred Hz, or so.

I have known more than one professional musician who also happened to really like Klipsch Heritage speakers (in this case La Scalas), and one of them, a very talented french horn player who was also incredible on fretless bass, said what he liked so much about La Scalas was not their ability to play loud, but rather what they can accomplish with very low input levels.

Sure it's fun to crank the volume a bit with certain material, but when I listen critically, it's in the near field, in the sub-watt range, and almost always from a single-ended amplifier. And of course there will be the other end of the spectrum, where one's boat fails to float unless the volume is turned up very high on equipment capable of that particular approach to listening. Each to his or he own.

[JJkizak]

I have ended up at around 78 to 85 db  SPL for clarity and voicing and balance. But for gut vibrating nitro blasting spectacular bass and blaring voices sometimes I end up at 98 db SPL even though the room acoustics have major issues. K-horns have an enormous range of volume.

JJK

Edited March 15, 2015 by JJKIZAK

[Ray_pierrewit]

This is an interesting thread that totally confirms a rather intuitive listening session I had the other night. I resurrected the Lascalas from my basement last week and have installed them in our living room. I had been reading Jim Smith's excellent "How to Get Better Sound" book and decided to apply some of his technics to voice my system to our room.

 

His advice on finding the seating position, and it's relative importance in obtaining the smoothest bass reproduction, yielded some surprising results. I had anticipated my listening position to be around 10 feet away from my speakers, but while walking around with my eyes closed and listening intently to the bass, I found that my ideal listening window was alot nearer the speakers than I imagined, around 7.5 feet tweeter to ear.  The Lascalas have often been wonderful to listen to, but that evening they soared.

 

I was perplexed because I had always thought that eliciting any sort of deep emotional response from reproduced music meant lots of volume and sitting much further, to get a huge soundstage and chest thumping bass ya know? Here I listened, mesmerized, until 2am, certain that my sleeping wife and kids would wake up and tell me to turn it down. Actually the volume was quite low, but in that "magic window" it was envelopping enough to spellbind. The speakers are about 82" apart, and I'm sitting around 98" tweeter to ear, so I'm not sure if that constitutes a near field listening distance, it certainly is alot closer than I've every sat to any system.

 

Also of interest, I'm using a little 3W SEP EL84 amp, a first generation Glow Amp One, while my Scott 299b waits for new tubes. I hadn't ever used that amp with the Lascalas and now I'm afraid I might actually prefer it over the Scott!! With a total of 4 tubes, autobiasing and a nice look (though the Scott is also a good looker), it's an interesting alternative.

[TwoCables]

This is indeed an interesting thread,  and it's a concept that I've given some thought about before when listening to my music. When I was younger, I would just crank it to nearly ridiculous levels. These days though, I keep it at a level where the music is near the louder end of the normal decibel level of range of human speech. So, I usually keep my music at a volume where it isn't yelling at me, but it's also not so quiet that I'm tuning it out. I want it to be calmly and respectfully speaking to me while simultaneously being loud enough to keep my attention. So yeah, the dB level tends to be between 60 and 75. If I ever go higher for any reason, then I usually go back down after a while because even though loud music is fun for me for a while, I don't want it loud for extended periods of time. It's the same with having a conversation with someone: it might be fun if they were to use a louder voice for a while, but not for a long time.

 

I discovered that if I have my music too loud, then I begin ignoring it and tuning it out and my mind can begin to wander. The same thing happens if it's too quiet. So, it has to be in that magic sweet spot so that it's fully engaging, making me WANT to listen carefully. It's the same as how quiet or loud someone is speaking: if they're too quiet, most people won't listen. If they're too loud, most people won't listen. If they use just the right volume, then people won't mind listening at all.

 

I noticed this many years ago when I was listening to my music super loud and then I suddenly had to turn it down to a more personal level (like the volume level of a conversation between just 2 people). As soon as I did that, I was suddenly listening more closely to it and enjoying it more and it made me begin reconsidering my usual listening volume.

 

This is a good thread!

[ClaudeJ1]

75-85 db. Depends entirely on the DYNAMICS of the recording.

[mikebse2a3]

 

How many feet away do you consider near-field??? Or how far away is no longer near-field???

I should have defined that!  I'm using a 6 foot equilateral triangle, although I've been playing around with moving the listening position a foot closer and getting even more involvement.  That may become permanent.  Good point though- I don't really know where the cutoff would be where it no longer is considered near-field.

 

Maynard

 

 

 

 

 

Near Field is not just a matter of distance between loudspeaker and listener or distance between loudspeakers. It's determined also in part by wavelength, room dimensions as well as listener and loudspeaker distance relative to all these parameters. The absorption, diffusive and reflective properties of the room boundaries and it's contents will also influence where the transition between near field and far field begin to transition.

 

It's obvious that in any normal home listening room we are in what could be defined as multiple types of sound fields depending on frequency. By pulling the loudspeaker and listener's locations away from the boundaries you may extend the bandwidth that would be defined as near field for a listener.

 

One of the problems with many near field setups is a loss of scale for image size with the presentation feeling like a miniature representation of reality.

 

When rooms are acoustically treated properly (This means not just absorption but also diffusion and modal control) then wide loudspeaker spreads and greater listener distance will reproduce a more realistic perception of images size and scale while having all the benefits of Near Field setups IMHO.

 

 

 

Sound Fields depend not only on the Sound Power and directional characteristics of the Sound Source, but also on the properties of any medium it passes through is Reflected, Absorbed or Diffused by.

 

 

 

Near Field : that part of a sound field, usually within about two wavelengths of a noise source, where there is no simple relationship between sound level and distance, where the sound pressure does not obey the Inverse Square Law and the Particle Velocity is not in phase with the Sound Pressure.

 

 

 

Here is a link to an Audio Glossary that might be helpful for those interested:

 

http://www.acoustic-glossary.co.uk/sound-fields.htm

 

 

miketn

Edited April 1, 2015 by mikebse2a3

[cradeldorf]

I agree with this thread 100% I have noticed many a times that the exact level makes or breaks a good track.

[JJkizak]

My latest revelation is with the huge bass output at about 75-85 DB SPL that the high end sounds a bit rolled off even though it's still there. If I turn the sub down a bit the high end magically returns. Kind of wondering about this brain magic.

JJK

[Marvel]

75-85 db. Depends entirely on the DYNAMICS of the recording.

Posted this a long time ago about playback levels and mixes. For most recordings, this would mean listening at 75-85 db would be ideal.

 

According to an old book on recording, "Modern Recording Techniques" by Robert Runstein, studios use a playback volume of close to 85 db. Due to the Fletcher-Munson curves, this allows music to be played a little louder and a little quieter without much apparent change in the eq of the recording. I think Invidiosulus said they taught 90 db at Full Sail in Orlando. Then again, recording engineers are listening to music playback at those volumes all the time.

[RT FAN]

Last weekend I cranked an entire 6 watts through a pair of KG 5.5's. I am not sure what the dbs were but it certainly sounded like it was approaching concert levels to me. It only lasted for one song before I had to turn it down. How anyone listens at those levels for any period of time is beyond me.

[Mallette]

I love near field.  My opinion (others above disagree) is that room acoustics simply don't matter unless you are in a gym when the speakers are 5 feet or less apart and you are 3 feet or so away.  My Audioengine A5s offer extraordinary immersion, and so do my LX-5 Lyneums at that distance.  Apparent level can be MUCH higher than actual level at those distances.

 

But I MUCH prefer social listening and you can't really do that in near field, or with headphones.  With K'horns organ music needs to be at 90db or so to get real.  But, as mentioned, every recording has it's sweet level and it isn't hard to find.

 

Dave

[muel]

I've long felt that there is an ideal volume for any example of music I can imagine.  Most of the time it is going to be close to what I would hear if I was there live (except for ear bleeding concerts).  I've even considered keeping a log of volume settings so I can quickly return to that volume the next time I play that selection. I can usually remember and get close enough without getting that picky but it would be nice to be "spot on" before it even starts playing.

[TwoCables]

I've long felt that there is an ideal volume for any example of music I can imagine.  Most of the time it is going to be close to what I would hear if I was there live (except for ear bleeding concerts).  I've even considered keeping a log of volume settings so I can quickly return to that volume the next time I play that selection. I can usually remember and get close enough without getting that picky but it would be nice to be "spot on" before it even starts playing.

 

Keep notes on paper or on your computer or on your mobile device.

Edited April 2, 2015 by TwoCables

[pauln]

I have noticed and enjoyed this effect, too.

 

I think there are two interrelated things that make it happen. One is that within the room, when you are close the predominant field is the speaker, but when you are far the predominant field is the room reflections. There is a "boundary" between these two where the sound locks-in and becomes maximally coherent. The second thing is that this boundary varies with volume level, extending somewhat with increased levels but ultimately falling apart at loud levels. Deliberate room treatments may extend the boundary to allow greater listening distance and higher levels (and may cause the opposite  to the effect we are discussing, where close soft listening no longer sounds quite right).

[russ69]

On 3/14/2015 at 8:27 AM, canyonman said:

How many feet away do you consider near-field??? Or how far away is no longer near-field???

Far field is multiple wavelengths away. The wavelength at 20 hz is about 60 ft long IIRC. The higher frequencies are less than an inch. So we are not exactly near or far field if we are talking about the full frequency of sound. My generalization is that if you sit near equal distance or less you are in the near field. If you are approximately 1.5X or so back as your speakers are apart you are in the far field, with a little fudge factor for smaller or bigger rooms. 

[russ69]

On 3/14/2015 at 4:55 AM, tube fanatic said:

The more I evaluate amp performance in near-field systems, the more I am convinced that every recording has a "magic" listening level... 

Maynard    

The system has a level where things start to get linear and recordings have different levels that will change when that occurs. 

 

I know this is an old post but I had to add my thoughts.