Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Loudness of System Listening to Music

On the PS3, check this. While music is playing, hit the green-triangle button. In the icon list that pops up, go to the speaker in the top, left. The volume control that shows up, should be set to "Normal", not - or + anything. While setting it to plus will make it louder, it also causes horrible digital clipping. Minus will limit the dynamic range. Only normal, should ever be used.

Thanks a lot guys! I'll look into these things when I get home. I forgot to answer kcarlile but I've tried all the listening modes with thx sounding the "fullest".

And yes also I am using real store bought CDs not burned files or anything.

Thanks again!

Scott

I had a very similar experience with my M60's driven by Denon avr-989 at 115 wpc through a PS3. So I used an SPL meter to test it out and it was playing at 99 db 13' from the front speakers. I guess the M60's play so clean that they seem to be less loud than they actually are (yeah, not very scientific, I know).

The other thing to consider is that when you are playing a BD, you are using 5 channels (5 X 115 or whatever), whereas stereo is 2 X 115 wpc so there is less sound pressure in the room. If you were to listen to your CD's using 5 channel stereo, I think the loudness would be close to what you experiencing through the blu-ray.

Scott, at least two things about your question make it difficult to give an informed response. The first is that you just "feel" that it should be louder, but you apparently don't have an SPL meter to actually measure if the volume is where it should be for normal listening. A similar problem exists in another thread involving distortion, which also has no information about the actual sound level to help with analysing the problem. Another point is that you don't name the music CDs involved so that if any member also has one he can give his experience with it.

Music CDs have no established reference level such as movies do, but as some replies indicate, many pop recordings are mastered at the maximum level(or even a bit above it, into distortion from digital clipping), so if anything they exhibit an appalling uniform excessive loudness level.

Onkyos have several settings(muting, volume limiter, IntelliVolume)which affect volume, but these all have to be set differently by the user for any unusual limitation to exist.

Most home movie listeners find the 0 reference level entirely too loud for standard usage and set it quite a bit lower than even the -5 that you mention. Sure you can set it higher than that for the music. The 807 almost certainly has plenty of power to handle it and neither it nor the speakers will be damaged, but if you're already playing at a loud level, your hearing may be.

Speaking of iphone:

Download the free ultimate ears app and use the built in SPL meter. I compared it to my Radio Shack SPL meter and suprisingly, it was very accurate (within a db or 2).

Report back with SPL levels you are experiening with bluray and SPL levels you are experience with CD.

I only found it to be inaccurate when it came to bass frequencies.

Ahh, I only compared it to my radio shack meter using built in denon calibration test tones. I don't remember if I checked it with the subwoofer test tone or not.

In any case, it will be better than nothing and can give us an idea of how loud and what the difference between the two sources really are.

Thanks for the tip I'll download that app and get some figures and report back. I may also play with the cd frequency etc settings in the music settings for the ps3. Seems for mp3 there are many bit rates and then the default frequency is 48khz but can be changed to something like 44.1khz/etc so I may tinker with those.
Thanks again

Scott

The frequency won't change the volume level, but it is recommended that you don't use the default, 48 kHz, but select the 44.1/... setting. The only reason that it's on 48 from the start is because it's compatible with most every receiver where as the multiples of 44.1 are not (even though the vast majority do support them without problem).

The volume level during playback it the most important one, and it can't be set from the normal setting menu, only during playback.

Chris, why do you suggest not using the default and use the 44.1 setting instead?