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RhettOracle
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13 Feb 2010, 12:25 pm

Having been a musician for the last 40-odd years, I usually listen to music no louder than the volume of actual instruments. Although there is a significant difference between the sound of a Marshall stack and a properly-recorded Marshall stack, I listen to music that would have a Marshall stack or two at a volume no louder than the drums would be. The drums are my yardstick. When I play with people, we normally turn up loud enough to achieve a good balance with the drummer. That way, no one gets hearing damage.

I have lived with WAY too many obnoxious neighbors who listen to their obnoxious music at truly terrifying levels of volume, without regard for anyone else in the universe. None of my neighbors even know I have a stereo. I listen to the engineer's mixing skills, and the separate parts of a song's arrangements. You can't tell what any of those are at 120 dB.



ScottF
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13 Feb 2010, 1:27 pm

I like loud music, but only if it is controlled by me... I cannot stand it if it is being controlled by someone else


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bluebandit
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13 Feb 2010, 1:54 pm

Hate it. It's overbearing, often inescapable, and usually makes me very angry. Too much bass feels physically painful. Most concerts I've attended have had an acceptable noise level but I always bring ear plugs just in case.



Spazzergasm
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13 Feb 2010, 2:38 pm

Detestable behaviour is playing your music too loud and intruding upon others. You're essentially raping someone's ears...It's unwanted violation.
I listen to my music pretty quietly. And if it's bothering someone (have had no complaints, only with TV volume) then I turn it down more than they need.
Loud music is fun...It just hurts. If I try listening to my music really loud, I only can for maybe 30 seconds, because it gets painful.
My mom and I always get in small fights when she listens to her music. Because she listens to it so loud it can be heard through the whole house. :cry: :evil:



Jellybean
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14 Feb 2010, 6:50 am

I can't stand hearing other people's music because sometimes you just want peace and quiet. Other people can't understand how I can listen to my music on an average volume, yet when someone else does, I freak out. Because of the above reason. I only play my music loud to drown out someone else's loud music. My neighbour used to play his music loud all day and sometimes at night. When they got wasted at night and I was left home alone, I would get my bike out, go in the house, put Westlife on loud and repeat then leave! Served him right...


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SplinterStar
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14 Feb 2010, 9:30 am

Some music to me, must be loud (various shades of metal/alternative), or they lose their power and effect. Most other music only makes sense to me when at extremely low volume, so you can make out every bit of the song and when it stops/starts. The really high frequencies of singers and violins and violas drives me mad though, it's like scratching a chalkboard with long nails inside my head. Not surprisingly almost every singer I like to listen to is a lower voiced male or grungy female.



rmctagg09
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14 Feb 2010, 2:27 pm

I personally prefer speakers to headphones, mostly because they hurt my ears, and I can't stand live concerts, especially rock. If someone finds it too loud, I just turn it down, unless they're being really rude, or have their stuff louder.



Sound
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14 Feb 2010, 4:29 pm

There's actually a definite reason why people enjoy music more when it is loud.
Actually, two reasons, I can think of.

Although we often don't tend to associate this reason in the moment, the louder music is, the more detail can be perceived. In any individual song, there are louder parts, and quieter parts which play at the same time. By increasing the volume, the quieter parts become more apparent and nuanced. In contrast, when at low volumes, these components sound more like rhythmic/melodic 'allusions', more like hints, where we mentally have to connect the dots since the louder parts tend to obscure it.

Another factor is modern production techniques. There's a device called a compressor that gets frequent use to sort of 'regularize' the loudness of a signal/song. In music such as classical, which might not be compressed, there's a lot of 'dynamic range,' meaning that there's sections of the song that are very quiet, and then times when the loudness leaps upward. However in 99.9% of popular modern music, the dynamic range is minute. The quiet sections are nearly as loud as the loud sections. The result is that when you listen to this music at lower volumes, it is rendered featureless and flat, consistent, unexciting.

See, your volume knob works on a proportional/ratio basis. So when you have your volume at 10, the quiet part is 3/4 as loud as the loud part. When you put your volume down to 5, your quiet part is STILL 3/4 as loud as the loud part. Thus illustrating that volume differences are difficult to perceive at low volumes with compressed music.

Classical, for example, doesn't quite react this way(due to lack of compression).... Which in some ways can make it more irritating at loud volumes, because one minute it's a pleasant volume, the next minute it's shaking the windows. However, it tends to retain excitement better at low volumes. Metal, on the other hand, is so crazy compressed that it's a constant, consistent din, and wont give you any volume surprises except on a song or two that's trying to emphasize dynamics variances.

This is a topic I deal with very frequently when I do mixdowns of my own music. What's sad is that, due to the introduction of these compressors (particularly the distribution of the multi-band compressor somewhere like 20 years ago), songs now have to compete with each other in loudness. If you're listening to the radio, and the next song that comes on is quieter than the other, it WILL be subliminally perceived as not-as-good. Thus, most producers now seek to keep up in loudness/compression, or often EXCEED the others in loudness/compression.
This is what's called, in the craft, "The Loudness Wars," and is a terrible thing.