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

Hi all,

Forgive me if this is the wrong place but since my issue is with music I figured I should start here.

I've got my system set up and it's amazingly loud and sounds fantastic with a Blu Ray via PS3 HDMI bitstreaming. At 0 db reference level, the opening scenes and chase scenes in The Dark Knight shake the house and I really need to back off a bit to maybe -5.

However when I play music it just isn't very loud. I like loud music, and honestly I was expecting to be blown out of the room much like the Blu Ray experience but it just doesn't seem that way. Has anyone experienced this? I have tried CD's in the PS3 as well as my iphone in the Onkyo dock and even at 0 db it just isn't very loud. I know I shouldn't be trying to ruin my hearing, and I don't want to do that but I feel it should be louder.

The system includes an Onkyo 807, 2 M60Ti's, 2 QS8 V2's, 1 VP150 V3, and an EP350 V3 and PS3 and Onkyo ipod dock.

I've tried disabling Audyssey, Dynamic EQ etc and nothing seems to change it. Is it that the Dark Knight being Dolby TrueHD is just mixed at higher levels?

I know I could get external amps but I really think the 807 should be capable of driving the M60's pretty well (especially for what it does in Blu Ray mode). Perhaps I just need to turn it up more? I was reluctant to go above 0db much but perhaps I should? I never heard any weirdness like clipping or distortion so maybe I am still way off from clipping mode. It almost seems like the amp isn't putting out as much power with the cd is in.

Hope this made at least some sense. I have searched and am at a loss wondering if I am crazy or my expectations were just too lofty.

thanks

Scott

What surround more are you using for music listening?

Movies and music are two different animals. What you are probably experiencing and enjoying is the wonderful dynamic range and low frequency content (sometimes mixed hot) in today's Blu-ray Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master soundtracks. The type of content in today's reference Blu-ray disks rarely exists in most music genres and/or recordings (besides classical).

What he's seeing is the opposite of what I get. I have PS3 to a Pioneer receiver. When I watch movies I usually do it at -15 dB, but have to back it off too -30 dB for CDs played from the same source. Movies may have some slightly louder passages, but CDs are loud all the time.

I do have some CD/DVD-A discs with large dynamic ranges, those I'll play at -15 or higher (Carmina Burana DVD-A gets played at -0 dB. ).

But for the most part, music sounds louder than movies.

Check your input trim levels for the different sources.

I'm surprised that CD's through the PS3 aren't louder.

How do you have everything connected? Maybe what you're hearing is a difference between analog inputs (which may have more gain from the source) and digital inputs?

I'll bet the issue with the iPod is (as Mark mentioned) that you may have to turn up the volume on the iPod itself.

Thanks for the responses! Everything is hooked up via HDMI (PS3 to 807 to TV).

I kind of figured the ipod dock thing could be the levels of indivdual recordings etc and how they got imported into iTunes so that's why I tried the cd route. I will play around some more. In the PS3 menu I see there are settings for music options like whether to play cd tracks as mp3, etc so perhaps I need to tweak these things some and keep messing. Also I will play around with some different CD's.

Of course with a 7 week old baby finding times when I can crank it anyways may make the whole thing moot LOL

Cd's played back through a PS3 should give you very loud levels, nearly equal to BR if not louder as is my case with my BR player. I have to turn down my Denon 3808 to achieve similar dbs to movies when playing cd's or streaming music.

Is there some sort of setting in the Onkyo that is cutting dynamic range/night mode or something similar when only music is selected?

Maybe a dumb question but just to make sure there are no assumptions - when you say CD in the PS3 you are referring to actual 'factory produced' audio CD's? i.e. not MP3's burned on a CD that could have some digital gain tags applied to them that could be causing this effect?

Also as you suggested, go through the PS3 menus and make sure all volume normalisation options are turned off.

I experience the same as ClubNeon. I turn it up for movies and down for CD's.

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?

Non-integer upsampling is difficult, and error prone. So taking a 44.1 kHz base rate and turning it to 48 kHz will never yield good results. But 2x and 4x upsampling to 88.2 and 176.4 is a cake walk.

Going from 44.1 to 88.2 just means computing the missing samples in between. But from 44.1 to 48 has every sample being interpolated, no originals remain.

Thanks Chris. So this might be more of a philosophical question then - why are more receivers compatible with 48 kHz as opposed to 44.1 kHz? Wouldn't it make sense that the industry would be most compatible with the most 'logical' solution?

It's not the 44.1 that's the problem, but the 88.2 and 176.4 rates which are lumped together with it. Every receiver out there with a digital input is able to handle both 44.1 and 48 kHz sampling rates.

I don't know why Sony choose to not make a "pure" option, and separate upsampling from the base rate. 44.1 kHz is required for DTS CDs to function correctly. It is possible to make the PS3 output 44.1 instead of upsampling, by going into the audio settings and removing the check boxes on the 88.2 and 176.4 modes. That's probably the best thing to do for anyone owning a non-SACD compatible PS3. But if you do play SACDs in the system you'll want to leave those higher rates enabled.

HDMI connections are able to specify which rates are supported during the handshake, so no compatibility issues should happen there. But for people using the optical connection, the PS3 can only go by what the user tells it. That's why it defaults to the 48, because that will always work.

Thanks everyone for the replies and info so far! Finally got the baby out of the house and did some testing with the iphone app on my 3G-S. I'm not sure how valid the scores are, but reliability obviously should be pretty good since I used the same app back to back. I'm surprised how much variability there is across cd's I guess.

So here are some things I listened to, all at 0db and PLII THX Music selected on the Onkyo (except the TrueHD on Dark Knight obviously)

Source Average SPL Peak SPL
Dark Knight 75 93
Marilyn Manson 89 91
Beautiful people
Audio Slave 90 96
Doesn't Remind Me
Eagles GH 85 89
Hotel California
AC/DC live 85 91
Thunderstruck

Before my original post the only CD I had tried was the Eagles CD and obviously it isn't as loud as the others. So looking at these numbers and hearing the other CD's it was prety f'ing loud I think afterall .

How do these nubers compare to anyone that may have used the iphone app? Or even a Radio Shack I'm curious. The peak didn't go up much on the deep bass shots in Dark Knight, and since one of you mentioned it may be less accurate at deep low bass, I suspect that peak may have been higher with a RS SPL meter (which I will still buy at some point since I can see how useful it would be running the test tones).

Thanks again...I think my ears are tired LOL

Average SPL levels around 90 db are definitely enough to damage your hearing.

Based on the SPL readings reported I'd say your stereo is playing plenty loud.

How far away from the front speakers are the measurements taken? What are the spl in stereo mode?

Scott, there you go; actual measurements indicate that, if anything, some of your music listening is a bit on the high side. Using an average level much above 80dB isn't a good idea.

This also raises the possibility that if your movie sound level measures significantly louder than the music it should be dropped to -10 or so.

As those numbers indicate, the only significant difference is the dynamic range of the Dark Night soundtrack. Of course, the other being the ability to "feel" the sound as well which is always desirable.

My seating position is about 10 feet from the M60s and 11 from the tv and vp150. I didn't take separate measurements in stereo but I switched through them once and it was about 5db less if I recall correctly.

Thanks John,
I guess I was thrown off since I keep reading about people watching at reference level, but now I wonder are people actually sitting around watching movies at 105db? I assume not now since you pointed out that most people don't turn the dial up to 0db. Thanks again for your insights I'm new to this hi end stuff since I've been suffering with my wifes old BlOSE lifestyle system for he past 10 yeas! Lol

Why, I remember when reference level was 70dB. Durn kids these days. Get off my lawn!

I typically don't listen super loud, partly because my wife doesn't like it too loud and I don't want to damage my hearing.

Of course, I do crank it up a little extra when playing a demo worthy bluray or a new CD with superb recording quality on occasion but I seldom watch a whole movie or listen to a whole CD at these volume levels.

The loudest is when I have a few buddies over for beer and then decide to watch a movie at midnight.......

With a typical receiver and most speakers you will not reach those types of SPL levels you are referencing. When reading about achieving those types of reference levels with a receiver pay special attention to the speakers they are using. Those people probably own a speaker that is designed specifically for high sensitivity/SPL applications. These speakers usually employ a horn loaded compression driver which allow for higher efficiency compared to standard direct radiating speakers.