Low volume sound

PeterA said:

Why would it not be the ability to go both soft and loud?

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mtemur said:

Cause it is harder to get better sound at realistically loud levels. I mean as loud as unplugged live music. When it's loud enough all the flaws of components, speaker's ability, amplifier's driving capability, recording and room can be heard better and it's better to identify if it really sounds lifelike or not. It's more challenging. On the other hand when the SPL is low all the flaws can hide themselves.

Returning back to the original comment I replied before, if a setup sounds better and lifelike at realistically loud levels (or close) the room and the components are better. IMHO/IME that's how to evaluate a setup not the other way around like going as low SPL as you can go. I'm not sure if it's related with your question but that's what I meant on my prior post.

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NZS said:

Apologies for the late reply and Thank you all for taking time out to reply.
@Imperial,@Holmz, @mtemur, @Mike Lavigne, @PeterA, @Hear Here, @hopkins.@Imperial

To answer some of the unknown's raised and to give a brief description of the set up which may help.

I live in the countryside with the nearest house a couple hundred metres away.
It’s a 10 hour drive or a plane trip to any audio shops, so home demoing is not an option.

I haven’t seen a loudness switch on an amplifier in years. I did have one on an old Marantz in the 80’s.
I have never heard super tweeters but would be interested in listening to there effect next time I’m in a HiFi shop.

I don’t have a proper decibel meter but I did download an app which reads between 55 to 70 from the listening position, music piece dependent.
Front of speakers are 1 metre out from the wall, 1.8m apart and 2.8m to the seating position with the seat approx. half a metre behind to the wall.
Floors are timber on battens fixed to concrete with no rug on the floor.

The wall room treatments (R.T.F.S) have made a huge difference to the sound coherence and clarity. These are placed on the front and back walls with a small panel at the first speaker reflection point on the two sides.
Prior to this, the sound was muddled.
By adding/removing one isolation/diffuser piece at a time and readjusting positions down to very small increments, which took months in finding the right positions and balance.
It wasn’t straight forward and frustrating at times gaining a certain sound aspect and losing another.
I did find the volume level didn’t need to be as high after the room treatment.
I will have another tinker about and see what changes.
One thing that hasn’t changed prior to or after the room treatment, is my slight tinnitus being a little louder in this room compared to the bigger room with the TV.

I have been working on the fundamental basics of the system- Power, Isolation and cables feeds and they all have made a better difference, some more than others.
Mains power is dedicated 6mm (9 AWG) feeds with one to a Gigawatt PC3 SE power conditioner.
Cables are a mixture of Gigawatt, Final Touch Audio, Tellurium, Vermouth and Studio Connections.
Isolation racks are AG Lifter, with components on RevOpods and Stack Audio isolation feet.
The Buchardt Speakers have Stack Audio footers beneath them on SolidSteel SS filled stands with bamboo board capitals.

Is my thinking off track, with the Buchardt's not being a high efficiency speaker that require a bit more oomph to reveal the same details at lower sound levels, or the Kinki Studios amp not giving the Buchardt speakers enough push at lower levels especially in my small room?

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hopkins said:

Is it accurate to conclude that you don't think speakers make a difference at low volume?

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hopkins said:

If the flaws of bad speakers can be hidden at low volume, we can assume that the strengths of good speakers will be hidden as well. So then we may as well just get the cheapest bad speaker if low volume listening is what we are after?

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mtemur said:

No, I do think they differ at low volume, not just speakers, all components but low volume is not the best way to evaluate.

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mtemur said:

If bad speakers that you're after and background music it's ok. You can send music from your phone via Bluetooth also.

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hopkins said:

Ok, thanks for clarifying. So you think a speaker that performs better at low volume than another, could preform worse at higher volume.

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hopkins said:

So we would end up making the wrong decision, even though listening at low volume is precisely what we are after?

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mtemur said:

No, I didn't say that. Better setup comprised of better components and room sound better than a worse one, also at low volume levels but difference won't be as big as it has been at high volume levels.


This is not an argument about listening at low volume levels or high. This is and my prior comments are about which is better for evaluation, low volume levels or high. As I said before, high volume levels (close to real music) is better for evaluation of components cause it's more challenging. Apart from that you can always listen at low volume if that's what you want.

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hopkins said:

I was not arguing for or against low level listening. I was just curious to understand your logic.

I would just keep things simple, and given the fact that all speakers/systems don't perform as well at low levels, that's what I would check for.

Also, I've noticed that some people who listen at very low levels can't stand listening at "realistic" levels (whatever that may be), as they simply "shut off". If that's the case, they can't evaluate speakers played at high volume levels anyway.

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hopkins said:

I would just keep things simple, and given the fact that all speakers/systems don't perform as well at low levels, that's what I would check for.

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hopkins said:

Also, I've noticed that some people who listen at very low levels can't stand listening at "realistic" levels (whatever that may be), as they simply "shut off". If that's the case, they can't evaluate speakers played at high volume levels anyway.

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mtemur said:

I agree.

If they cannot stand live music or any sound at high levels, I agree but they can always ask their friend's help. If they can listen live music but cannot stand listening at high volume levels with their setup it may probably because of the fatigue.

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sigbergaudio said:

If you always listen very low and that is what you're auditioning for, it makes sense to also test that way.

What I assume started this argument was an earlier quote in the thread, claiming "the lower you can turn the volume down with all the music being there the better the component is!"

I would agree with @mtemur that this is misleading at best. It's much more difficult for a loudspeaker to do a good job at high volumes than low. And if it can play loud with impact and low distortion / compression, it is likely to sound good at lower volumes as well.

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hopkins said:

You'd have to wonder then why some people, in the same venue, prefer to listen farther away than others.

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mtemur said:

If it's too farther away making a huge difference in SPL then they cannot stand loudness of live music, back to square one.

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hopkins said:

What is square one? Asking for a friend to listen instead of you? Or dismissing any system that they don't like at high volume based on your assumption that the system is to blame (it s fatiguing) ? Just trying to understand...

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