Thanks for clarifying what you meant by “realistic.” I’m assuming that even though you want “realistic” that you also don’t want to permanently damage your hearing. For example the aircraft I work on idles at 114dB measured standing underneath it. With just two engines running at TRT it’s pushing 125dB while standing 50 feet out front of it. I’ve measure some fighters at 140dB from 100 meters away kicking in their afterburners climbing out. The same would go for realistic gunshots, cannon fire and explosions. If you have an SPL meter measure what you consider to be the optimal SPL for some sound effects and compare them to the SPL of similar real world sounds and that will give you an idea of highest SPL you will need to get the realism you want. You can then look for speaker/amp combos that will get you to the level you want. It may turn out you need a speaker even more efficeint than the M80s like some Klipsch speakers.
so, in essence, you say (grunt) that with the higher sensitivity of the M80s i should not have any problem, right?
Theoretically (see above). The M80s will easily play loud enough with a midrange receiver (probably lower) to permanently damage your hearing very quickly. So if you want to play them louder with a separate amp they will be loud enough for any “sane” HT use.
