for a frequent daily listener, listening to hifi at actual live performance SPL levels for the majority of music would not last long. no matter how sorted the system. and we see many aged music lovers who once enjoyed great hearing in their youth, but no longer have much of it.
so hopefully our systems can be involving and lively at moderate SPL levels, which is an attribute of the best, most sorted, systems. once in a while we push it a little to get closer to 'live'. we all have our own views on how our systems do at this.
and we do the best we can to continue to enjoy the music we love and have it fill our lives we are currently living in.
I get it, Mike. At elevated performance levels, eventually somebody might lose an eye.
Look at it this way. Snow skiing is a risky sport. Let’s say I love to snow ski whenever possible. Every day from morning to night I could hit the bunny slopes at 10 mph for safety’s sake or I could aggressively attack a handful of black diamond runs and call it a day at 2 pm.
Which experience is most exhilarating and which am I going to remember and share most? Which experience is going to cause me to dig deepest to maximize everything I and my equipment have to offer? Which skiing experience is gonna’ drive me to improve my performance over and above what it was today rather than remain complacent for all eternity? More importantly, which potentially demonstrates the greater performance-oriented mindset – which presumably is why we’re all here in the first place, right?
IOW, by nature human beings are into performance and competition. Presumably that’s why bleachers and TV broadcasters at bunny slopes are rare. And as a performance-oriented pursuit, high-end audio is no exception.
Clearly your response here alludes to the great differences between the mindset of a typical lover of music and a genuine performance-minded type.
BTW, when I mentioned earlier systems operating at closer to their base performance levels rather than closer to their optimal, I was not thinking of lowered listening volume levels – though that certainly contributes to making matters worse sonically.
Rather, I was implying because of what we do / don’t do to cripple our system’s performance so they cannot perform much beyond their base potential. So crippled that listening at higher volume levels would likely cause ear fatigue or bleed. For many with more inferior configs, the greater the volume the more music info audible at the speaker and the more audible distortions too, right? Not saying your system specifically.
I only mentioned lowered listening volumes levels because it’s such an easy tell of which mindset we belong. Regardless of the reason, lowered listening volume levels will always do zero to help a system perform closer toward its optimal potential. This applies to ALL playback systems small and great. For the simple reason that the lower the volume level the more music info becomes inaudible. Anybody can perform this test. The closer the volume gets to zero the less music info we hear. It’s an undeniable fact no matter how many try to deny.
Lastly, with regard to lowered listening volume levels what justice are we serving the performers and performance when we intentionally cut the performance's legs out from underneath it and then tell everybody all is good?
Brazilians are dangerous !
