Despite that my very dynamic classical music (specially the DSD ones which for some reason are quiter than the PCM ones) is quiet on my 470Ohm headphones, and can't pickup some of the quieter sounds that my 35Ohm headphone does. If it could reach 111dB SPL I don't know what the problem is. The max impedance my heapdhone has is around 900Ohm in the lowerend.
I didn't mention that it would reach these levels only at the moments when the music you are listening to is peaking at 0dBFS. Classical music typically have huge differences between the average and the peak levels. 25dB is fairly typical in my experience, some can even go as far as -30dB below the peak. So in these cases, you would listen at an average of maybe 81-86dB SPL and only the loudest parts would get to 111dB SPL. I'm guessing the loud parts of classical music is still loud enough, right?
Yes the loud parts are indeed very loud. I'm worried more about the quiet parts. I'm sure I listen to music at around 80dB average since 90dB would hurtmy ears. But assuming the peaks were 110dB and the dynamic range is 40dB (high even for classical) that means that the quietest parts of the music is at 70dB correct?
I could not find a sensitivity graph for the R70x (my 470 Ohm headphones).
That's the problem: when listening to classical, in order to hear the quiet parts I have to put my amp on hi gain, max volume to hear them, and then the loud parts hurts my ears and I have to turn down the volume. Don't know how many dB the peaks are.
An orchestra is not a small point source. When you stand "directly in front of the brass section", you might be 5 feet from the closest brass player, but some other brass players are much further away from you. You can't be 5 feet away from all players of the orchestra at the same time. That's why when you integrate the acoustical power at your ears, it gets "only" to 110 dB SPL. When you walk away to the "best seat in the house", your distance to those players who where originally furthest away from you increases much less relatively (relative distance matter in distance attenuation calculations). Your distance to the closest player perhaps 10-folds ( -20 dB), but your distance to the furthers players maybe only doubles ( -6 dB) or even less. That's why the integrated acoustical power at your ears doesn't drop 20 dB. Also, the hall has reverberation. It is far from a free-field situtation. The reverberation (without early reflections and direct sound) is the same level everywhere in the hall and increases the overall sound pressure level significantly.
I wouldn't call music with peaks of 80 dB "very loud". Loud maybe. Peaks of 85 dB is perhaps "very loud", but yes, 110 dB is "damage your hearing in minutes" loud.
There is of course less dynamic types of classical music compared to romantic era and newer orchestral music.
If you're talking about periods, then I hardly listen to classical. I listen to Baroque and Romantic. I don't know any clssical composers outside the big 3 (Mozart,Beethoven,Haydn) besides J.C. Bach. And I did notice Romanic was a lot more dynamic than Baroque.
1400 - 1600 Renaissance
That's something I noticed too, all the concertos and symphonies tend to be the most dynamic and hard to drive. I myself like all the types of Baroque/Romantic, as long as they have no vocals (I HATE vocals), but my favorites are always the concertos and symphonies.
1. You haven't accounted for absorption from the musicians, other audience members and carpets and chairs. Probably your figure isn't far wrong though, maybe a few dB less in most cases.
Berlioz didn't invent orchestration. Orchestration had been around for centuries before Berlioz was even born, however he did write the definitive book on the subject (including it's prior history), it became required reading for composer students and was therefore very influential. I agree though that orchestras gradually became bigger and more dynamic. In Mozart's day an orchestra was around 40 musicians, Bach's typically around 20 - 30 and by the early part of the C20th, it became it's current standard full symphony orchestra size of around 90. That's in addition to the more sudden/dramatic changes in dynamics often employed by the Romantic era and later composers and the fact that most modern orchestral instruments are significantly louder than their Baroque and even Romantic era ancestors.
Generally, symphony recordings have the largest dynamic ranges of all music genres, particularly the later romantic period symphonic composers such as Mahler, the post romantics such as R. Strauss and some of the impressionists and later composers, such as Ravel and Stravinsky.
Yes, I didn't do that, because I just wanted to make a simplified calculation that is definitely a little bit off, but gives us the ballpark.
Music I hate at 85 dB is torturously loud to me while music I love at 85 dB is probably awesome level. Yeah, how loud something is to someone somewhere is subjective. Here we were talking about loudness in concert hall. When I did the mixing course last year, the teacher instructed to use 80-85 dB levels while mixing. Anyway, this discussion wasn't about how loud people find the sound. It was about how many decibels there is. For example cinemas are calibrated to 85 dB regardless of what an older person thinks about it. It is considered generally loud but not very loud = good level.
That's why I wrote "invented".
I have a boxset of Ravel's orchestral works on Brilliant Classics (Eliahu Inbal) and the combination of how it has been recorded and Ravel's music makes it too dynamic to enjoy. That's the worst case of "too much dynamic variation" in my classical music collection. Other recordings of "very dynamic music" just work better.
1. Firstly, you seem to have missed my point: In addition to the subjective opinion that everyone has about what is loud, there's also a perceptual difference regarding decibels in significantly larger rooms and I specifically mentioned it because obviously there's a very significant difference between the size of a concert hall and the size of a consumer's listening environment. Using the cinema analogy again, 85dB in a cinema is considered "loud but not very loud", while exactly the same 85dB in a home listening environment is significantly louder, EG. Very loud, and that's for the same person with the same subjective opinion on what is loud! Secondly, as a calibrated level, 80-85dB is too high a level for mixing, unless it's film mixing in a full sized dubbing theater. Even film mixing in a sitting room sized environment should be done at a lower level than that, and films are mixed much quieter than music! As a peak (rather than a calibrated) level, 80-85dB for music mixing is probably about right, depending on the music.[1] Here we were talking about loudness in concert hall. When I did the mixing course last year, the teacher instructed to use 80-85 dB levels while mixing. Anyway, this discussion wasn't about how loud people find the sound. It was about how many decibels there is. For example cinemas are calibrated to 85 dB regardless of what an older person thinks about it. It is considered generally loud but not very loud = good level.
[2] That's why I wrote "invented".
I admit I missed your point of comparing concert halls and smaller rooms. In a concert the audience can't tell the orchestra to play quieter (only the conductor can do that) so the audience is at the mercy of what is happening or walk out. At home I can turn the volume down if the music is too loud for me. Or up if it is not loud enough. I kind of agree with you about the mixing levels. I felt that the overall volume levels used in the course were about 5 dB too high, but that's my opinion. Not only that, but I instantly noticed that the stereo image is way off to the left and mentioned about it to the teacher. The Genelec 8331A speakers they had should give very sharp and accurate soundstage in a studio room with proper acoustics, but that wasn't the case at all. Turned out the DAC had a glitch that made the right channel no less than 8 dB quieter! After fixing the issue the soundstage was as precise as expected.
I am not a Berlioz expert, but I think his contributions were more than just writing a book. You do fine job at correcting people whenever needed, but there are situations where it becomes nitpicking.
