i have not spent any time comparing duplex. I have a Wattgate and a Furutec Rhodium. I used the Wattgate but never really listened as a compare. I have not installed the Furutec. Sitting in a box.
At What SPL Do You Listen to Your Stereo?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
Doesn’t havre to be mp3 to have a crest factor of 5. but yeah the lack of dynamics in some audiophile favorites is staggering.
Tried the Rex listening rule today ,
Oscar Peterson (Digital )Jazz Trio :
Avg Din :76db
Low : 67db
High 90db
Seated distance: 9ft
Room noise floor: 32db
Plenty everything to catch those drum thwacks and piano key strikes ..!
Oscar Peterson (Digital )Jazz Trio :
Avg Din :76db
Low : 67db
High 90db
Seated distance: 9ft
Room noise floor: 32db
Plenty everything to catch those drum thwacks and piano key strikes ..!
With anything other than A weighting readings depend heavily on how much bass the particular music has in it (and the size of your woofers). This makes two readings, one guy listening to a string quartet and one guy listening to the 1812 overture significantly different. It's impractical to specify the music being used, so A weighting levels readings out and makes readings more relevant to the sensitivity of the ear by ignoring low bass.
As a practical example, with my four 18" subwoofers, with the right music such as something by Yello, I hit well over 100dB (120dB at 20-30Hz is not unheard of), but this is strictly because of the subs. If I turn them off, the readings are a more sensible 80dB. Taking a reading with A weighting gives a result closer to that 80dB, and is more representative of what it's doing to my ears.
Agreed. I follow NIOSH recommendations for daily exposure, and they are based on a dBA scale, taking into account the sensitivity of our ears as you say. It's fun to compare dBA and dBC readings on my Reed SPL meter, however. Yes, a bass drum on a large orchestral piece can pump up dBC readings pretty fast.
"A" weighting eliminates the huge variable of bass (the particular music and how many and how big the user's subs are) and is closely correlated to actual loudness at our ears, taking into consideration our ears being far less sensitive as frequency goes down.
So really, it makes more sense to standardize on A weighting because of this correlation to actual 'loudness' as perceived by the ear. "A" weighting doesn't give as 'impressive' a number, but it is a more realistic number.
Academic really ..!
You can use the weighting you want to use A or C both attenuates , with A mid centric , C bass centric , there is no right or wrong weighting , i happen to have it set at flat response no weighting ..!
Using C or A is relevant unless for comparing , with other same weighting
now choose a recording , any recording and compare A, B,C, Z weighting version report...!
Its not about being impressive its about referencing , Z actually gives you full bandwidth SPL ..
Yes it does, but like I said in my original post, it is also heavily dependent on both the type of music being listened to and the bass capabilities of the speakers. For the same music music with low bass, my system is very likely to read significantly higher in dBC than yours (take a look at my speaker stack in my info section). This is misleading since it bears no relationship to the sensitivity of our ears vs frequency. A good portion of the 'loudness' is from low bass which doesn't matter if someone else has smaller speakers.
Academic to you perhaps, but I think you are missing my whole point. What I'm saying about the insensitivity to ears at low frequencies is well documented, starting with the Fletcher-Munson curves. "A" weighting ignores this insensitivity and places every reading on the same plane. I'm quite sure you don't care how much SPLs my four 18" subwoofers can contribute at 20Hz, jacking up the readings - and in fact it is quite irrelevant!
Having listened to high end audio systems for 40 years now, one reason my hearing is still not completely shot is the strict control I exercise on the maximum volume. I try to never exceed 75 dB at my listening chair. Any louder and I get uncomfortable. One should never attempt to duplicate orchestra level SPL’s at home. An orchestra plays in a hall thousands of times larger.
And then there’s biology. I’m guessing the overwhelming majority of WBF users are male. And getting on in their years. I’m close to retirement age. Well, folks, biology is not kind to elderly males. Yes, you have the money (finally!), and the leisure to indulge your fantasy of a high end component you’ve dreamt about for years. In my case it was a giant pair of Soundlab electrostatics 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Great, now I have them. But I don’t have the ears I had when I was in my early 30’s when I heard about Soundlab. Life’s tough.
George Bernard Shaw, the famous English playwright, said it best; “youth is wasted on the young”. Amen to that.
Or like Pink Floyd put it in their immortal song Time, from the Dark Side of the Moon, my favorite rock album:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
And then there’s biology. I’m guessing the overwhelming majority of WBF users are male. And getting on in their years. I’m close to retirement age. Well, folks, biology is not kind to elderly males. Yes, you have the money (finally!), and the leisure to indulge your fantasy of a high end component you’ve dreamt about for years. In my case it was a giant pair of Soundlab electrostatics 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Great, now I have them. But I don’t have the ears I had when I was in my early 30’s when I heard about Soundlab. Life’s tough.
George Bernard Shaw, the famous English playwright, said it best; “youth is wasted on the young”. Amen to that.
Or like Pink Floyd put it in their immortal song Time, from the Dark Side of the Moon, my favorite rock album:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
I just played Holst’s The Planets, “Saturn”, with Mehta/LA. The range was 48 to 88 dBA. Mostly 60 to 80 but a big dynamic range. I suppose dBC would take the peaks to low to mid 90s. Any louder and the quiet passages are too loud to sound realistic. I find with a lot of recordings, perhaps most recordings, if you play it loud enough to approach realistic levels, the low level stuff is a bit too loud. And if you play the quiet passages realistically soft, you don’t get realistic loudness.
The perspective for this recording is not front row.
The perspective for this recording is not front row.
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I too find loud bass uncomfortable. A friend was showing off his new subs. The music was probably in the 70s. The bass was set too high. No idea the level. It made my eardrums rattle in a painful way. I actually find loud bass painful in a different way than loud mids and highs. It definitely forces my fingers to my ears.
Agreed on that. I have found along my own audio journey that the lower registers are the -
1 - Hardest to truly implement properly, not only to the mains (if using subs) but to the room as well.
2 - Many well regarded speakers don't really integrate the two properly within their speakers, although stellar in other areas.
3 - Most of the folks out there that have subs worsen the sound with them in place. Many of those ruin the sound.
4 - Volume and a quality recording/mastering play a huge roll. Sometimes, just one notch on the volume can make or break the beauty of the song.
5 - I give up on compressed recordings. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken chit.
Tom
1 - Hardest to truly implement properly, not only to the mains (if using subs) but to the room as well.
2 - Many well regarded speakers don't really integrate the two properly within their speakers, although stellar in other areas.
3 - Most of the folks out there that have subs worsen the sound with them in place. Many of those ruin the sound.
4 - Volume and a quality recording/mastering play a huge roll. Sometimes, just one notch on the volume can make or break the beauty of the song.
5 - I give up on compressed recordings. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken chit.
Tom
+1
I never look at the volume setting, just adjust by ear. There is a point when everything locks into place. Then it is like eating the perfect confection.
Compressed recordings never reach this state. Bad chicken taste.
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