Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo The "correct" volume?

Has anyone noticed that when playing back music that every source has a "correct" volume?

By that I mean, the sweet spot.

Increase the volume just 1 more and it becomes too loud and blaring, decrease it 1 less (than the sweet spot) and you can't quite achieve lift-off. Not enough "grunt factor" to rock out (or jazz out or symphony out or country out or...) with.

It seems that each "source" has a perfect volume that varies.

Or is this just me?

It is just you and your room

I have noticed that some source material does sound better at different volumes than others. Most likely those recording engineers having some fun at our expense

I would look at it more in the sense of the variations in the quality of the recording(s) itself rather than volume playback (though that varies as well). Music recordings have such inconsistent quality in this regards across genres.

There may be a sweet spot, but it varies according to mood, and also according to how loudly you've been listening lately.

Have you ever started up your car and couldn't believe how loudly you were listening to the stereo the last time you were in your car? Your ear/brain unit adjusts to loudness over time.

Yes, when I start my car up to go home from work I usually find I was blasting it in the morning to wake me up.

BINGO!

After 4 glasses of wine and the ingestion of a cannabis cigarette...

... and I shall call it: "The Grunt Factor Threshold".

Sorta like achieving the correct speed to get airborne...

(results may vary)

Just make sure that you have about 4 different “brands” of cigarette. With a different mix of the good stuff in each brand you can stay airborne at a higher altitude longer, or so I've heard.

While results may vary they are usually very good.

Back on topic yes I find that different sources each have a volume that sounds just right a bit to high or low and it just doesn’t sound right.

Some types of music beg to be played louder, like most Rock music. Playing Foreigner, Zeppelin, Doors ect at lower volumes just seems to lose some of the ambiance or power. On the other hand, I generally prefer to listen to acoustic music at a little more moderate levels, James Taylor, Leonard Cohen, Lightfoot, Dylan, Young ect.

Hi audiosavant and all,

Yes, mood and previous listening levels all play a big role (as well as ingestion of various liquids or substances), but individually there is quite a range of how we describe subjective levels of loudness.

In past listening experiments at Canada's National Research Council with a number of colleagues, I found their preferred levels were about 3 dB louder than what I liked, so I'd move back to the second row of chairs.

Not to re-direct this thread, but another interesting aspect I've found over the years is that if you are buzzed on whatever, you tend to lose critical faculties and tolerate really degraded sound quality or crappy speakers.

I never do critical product listening tests at Axiom if I've ingested anything other than food or coffee.

Cheers!
Alan

I can't seem to listen to music as loud as I use to since a bad incident with tinnitus a few years ago. I am now very careful with volume levels for sustained periods as well as wearing hearing protection around loud tools or machinery ex. chainsaws. When I start to feel "a fullness" in the ears, I don't mess around anymore.