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How loud will your system get!


mr clean

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When I moved into my condo apartment in 2001, the building was overdue for a refit, and the insulation in the windows was worn out, to the point where street noise and cold drafts came right in, like it or not.  Background noise was not a constant, since it got quiet late at night, but during the day, it was annoying.

 

Nearly a decade later, we got a major overhaul happening.  When it came to the windows, we got the very latest super-insulating types, but the frames were so bulky and sturdy that they looked like they came off an armoured car, because the frames were wider and the glass area was smaller.  There were grumbles, but when the new windows were closed, we were amazed.  You’d look out a window, and see and hear cars and trucks going by, but when you closed the window, with its new double row of rubber weatherstripping, it was like the sound was suddenly turned off.  Wow.  No grumbles after that.  As well, there were no more drafts, so more cosy meant less expensive to heat.  Win-win!

 

For me, the much lower noise floor was an unexpected bonus.  Now I could hear finer detail in the music, which was and is great.  The new windows meant my sound system now had greater dynamic range.  I could also listen at lower volume levels and still hear everything, plus when I turned it up a bit, the extra volume was much more noticeable. 

 

This is old news to some of you, but to me, this was the first instance of an audio upgrade that didn’t need to be plugged in.

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21 hours ago, dtel said:

Same here, also part of why I like big speakers, they sound big even low, with the detail.  

 

But it is nice to let them breathe on occasion, for a whole different affect. 

I do turn up the pipe organ stuff on occasion. I did build these for that after all.

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On 9/30/2019 at 10:40 PM, K5SS said:

Below is a screen shot of the DB meter, watching Shazam. At 88 DB, I wanted to run out of the room and my remotes were vibrating on my glass coffee table. Hearing some of you folks hitting 100 + DB is nuts;)

I agree with this. OSHA standards have been lowered from a 90 db max. down to 85 foro 8 hour exposure. When the amplitude goes up by 3 db, you have to cut the time in half. Otherwise, there WILL BE HEARING DAMAGE. Much like PWK, who lived to be almost 100, I want to keep my hearing as long as I can. I only crank it up for short demos, because I can.

 

Besides. keeping things at about 83 db, the modern standard, will give you plenty of enjoyment, lower distortion, and no fatigue.

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1 hour ago, kevinmi said:

My ears are still ringing from hearing ClaudeJ1's system a couple of months ago!

OK, but you asked for a demo, so you guys all got several. You were all smiling, as I recall. I hope it's "low distortion ringing." LOL.

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On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 4:11 PM, mr clean said:

I had a few bears today and got a crazy hair and wanted to see how loud my speakers would get. I usually don't listen crazy loud and just turned it up for a very short time. Just checked with the db meter on my phone. I got it up to 110 db and could not believe how loud it was. It may have gotten louder but I stopped there. How loud have you had your stereo?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've hit 129 dB at the listening position with the subs turned off  :D

 

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27 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

That's it?   WEAK!  😁  

For sure. Have you seen these pickup trucks they turn into giant bass bins? 168db and the whole truck is flexing. Women standing in front of open windows look like their hair is being blown by a hurricane. 129 is OK but not epic.

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21 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I agree with this. OSHA standards have been lowered from a 90 db max. down to 85 foro 8 hour exposure. When the amplitude goes up by 3 db, you have to cut the time in half. Otherwise, there WILL BE HEARING DAMAGE. Much like PWK, who lived to be almost 100, I want to keep my hearing as long as I can. I only crank it up for short demos, because I can.

 

Besides. keeping things at about 83 db, the modern standard, will give you plenty of enjoyment, lower distortion, and no fatigue.

 

Yes, and a level of 85 dB for a "loud" passage (even though some, like Keele, Jr., consider 85 dB "medium level," rather than "loud")* allows for instantaneous peaks 20 dB higher, @105 dB, just as THX and Dolby specified.  Theater tests of The Empire Strikes Back at standard level (for THX), from wherever their standard mic positions were, produced brief peaks of 108 db, and 110 dB in the deep bass.  How long would the leading edges of these peaks last?  At from 2 ms to about 500 ms, it would take quite a large number of peaks quite a while, with all those peaks crammed together cheek by jowl, to add up to a figure of 15 minutes (or so) for 115 dB; if the new standard is consistently 5 dB lower (I haven't found it online), I assume that would be 110 dB for 15 minutes (??).

 

OSHA is looking at Industrial Noise, not music, and looks at "continuous" in the sense the sound from a machine might be continuous (not continuous the way a steady tone would be), i.e., time weighted averages, putting the limit at 110 dB for, say, 15 minutes.  Orchestral music is not continuous in the steady tone sense, but may resemble, during loud passages, a time weighted average of machine noise.  Rock or electronic music, with sustained electrical guitar tones may require lower levels to be safe. 

 

The absolute limit for impulsive or impact noise is 140 dB.  This surprises me; I would expect a pulse at this level would cause temporary (or permanent) hearing loss, or ringing in the ears.  How loud is a gunshot when it occurs at arms length?  I know of a case in which a guy drove through the hills, firing his gun out of the car while drunk.  His aim was unreliable, so he shot the mast on the side of the front window.  He got his hearing back after several hours.

 

Another thought: A highly distorted signal might reach the "I can't stand it any louder" level at a lower true SPL than an only  moderately distorted signal, which might get to that hard to take loudness at a lower SPL than would a signal with hardly any distortion.  Loudness, after all, is a perceptual/psychological phenomenon, while SPL is a physical characteristic.

 

*Dope from Hope Vol. 16, No. 1, January 1977

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6 hours ago, twistedcrankcammer said:

I've hit 129 dB at the listening position

OK; I'll try again ... haha; have only been to 120dB's :D  Just checked and the neighbors went to bed ... I'll be "good" and try it tomorrow :) 

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12 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

To get louder you need to switch from wine to alcohol 😂

OK; did a "preliminary" test at 95dB's ... Kooper, Stills, Bloomfield's "Super Session" ... can't wait till tomorrow ... margaritas and 120++ dB's :D 

image.jpeg.c0c51b6d8ce2bee4a93ef91d9d1e5810.jpeg 

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