Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Room size

It makes sense because the 0dB point is not intended to provide an "absolute" volume, but rather something like "this is as high as you should normally go; we let you turn it up to 11 because we know you saw the movie, but you're normally asking for trouble if you go much over 0dB unless you have an unusually low input signal".

I imagine most of us would prefer 0dB to be something "absolute" and meaningful, like "0dB = 1W RMS into an 8 ohm load" but then the maximum volume setting on a powerful amp would be higher than on a smaller amp, and you know how quickly and badly that would be abused.