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
