Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Room size

What would the point be of having 0 dB be reference if every customer didn't use the same speakers with their receiver?

If I have it set at 0 dB with a THX receiver powering Magnepans, it would be much lower than it would be if I plugged Klipschorns into that same receiver. Unless they specify the sensitivity the speakers would have to be for 0 dB to be "reference level", it seems pretty useless to me.

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.