gorman
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2004
- Posts
- 1,170
- Likes
- 71
I promised this some time ago and, finally, I'm able to share this information with all fellow Head-Fiers.
First I will describe the experiment and the rationale behind it, then I'll provide the results, along with some comments.
As, hopefully, pretty much everybody in this forum is aware of, listening to headphones and canalphones at high volume is dangerous for the well being of our hearing. Hearing damage, once it happens, it's there to stay. So we should take great care of our one and only listening instrument.
With this in mind, I got in touch with Jerry Harvey, asking if he had the instruments necessary to conduct an experiment of the Sound Pressure Levels that UE-10 achieved inside one's ears, combined with the Rio Karma I usually use to listen with them.
He was ready to do that and confirmed that he had all the instruments necessary for this test, with the notable exception of the Rio Karma. Enter cmascatello who, very very generously, accepted to ship his own DAP to Jerry to test (I live in Italy, for me it'd have been really unpractical).
Now everybody would think "yes, but all songs have different recording volumes, the test would be pretty much useless unless you were listening only to the songs tested". True and I thought about that too.
Enter Replaygain. Replaygain is this nice technology whom many of you surely will be familiar with. For more detailed info, check this link. It boils down to a psychoacoustical analysis of a given music file to check how loud it sounds to our ears, with the target being to bring it under check, make all your music sound relatively at the same volume, avoid clipping, and so on and so forth. The volume target is usually set at 89dB for every song, with an "audiophile" setting available if you want to preserve the relative differences in volume of different tracks on the same album.
With this in mind, I reasoned that analyzing with Replaygain the tracks used for the test would help in coming up with results that could keep valid across all music. And the nice thing is that, upon examination of the results, it appears to work very nicely, give or take a couple of dB.
On with the results, now.
First, the values Jerry measured on cmascatello's Karma:
On Klark Teknic dn6000 A weight
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl
Volume 10 - 80db average/ 84db peak
Volume15 - 88db average / 92db peak
Volume20 - 98db average / 102db peak
Volume25 - 108db average / 112db peak
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started
Volume 10 - 77db average / 82db peak
Volume15 - 87db average / 92db peak
Volume 20 - 97db average / 102db peak
Volume 25 - 106db average / 111db peak
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box
Volume 10 - 74db average / 79db peak
Volume 15 - 83db average / 88db peak
Volume 20 - 94db average / 99db peak
Volume 25 - 103db average / 108db peak
These first results, without analyzing the recording levels of the different songs, already told me there was sense in this experiment. The Rio Karma, in fact, has been confirmed personally to me by a Rio engineer (UK Rio Engineer on Riovolution forums) to increase volume by 2dB per point of volume setting. We found this to be pretty much true for all these three songs (give or take one or, in one instance, two dB). And I did not share this information with Jerry Harvey at all (it came to me through an MP on Riovolution).
Now, on with the Replaygain analysis.
The three songs resulted with these average recording levels:
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl: 99.7dB
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started: 98.4dB
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box: 97dB
Again, these results are pretty much consistent with Jerry's findings, give or take a couple of dB. The difference is probably related to Replaygain psychoacoustic model, more than anything else. It's accurate, but to a certain extent, and obviously not as much as real measuring of real music reproduced through real speakers (or headphones in our case).
If we apply Realgain to achieve the 89 dB average replay level, we achieve these results with the three songs:
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl
Volume 10 - 69,3dB
Volume 15 - 77,3dB
Volume 20 - 87,3dB
Volume 25 - 97,3dB
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started
Volume 10 - 67,6dB
Volume 15 - 77,6dB
Volume 20 - 87,6dB
Volume 25 - 96,6dB
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box
Volume 10 - 66dB
Volume 15 - 75dB
Volume 20 - 86dB
Volume 25 - 95dB
As you can see, we still have this couple of dB of difference among the three songs. Let's average them, to come up to more "real" average SPLs at the different volume settings:
Volume 10 - 67,6dB
Volume 15 - 76,6dB
Volume 20 - 86,9dB
Volume 25 - 96,3dB
Even in a worst case scenario, taking into account the peaks for all the songs, we would get this:
Volume 10 - 72,3dB
Volume 15 - 81,3dB
Volume 20 - 91,6dB
Volume 25 - 100,9dB
Here is the suggested time of daily exposure for different SPLs. You can find several versions of this table. Some more strict, some more forgiving in their suggestions. This is kind of strict and comes from the Nova Scotia Department of Labour:
16 hours for 80 dBA sound
8 hours for 85 dBA sound
4 hours for 90 dBA sound
2 hours for 95 dBA sound
1 hour for 100 dBA sound
30 min for 105 dBA sound
15 min for 110 dBA sound
7.5 min for 115 dBA sound
0 min for above 115 dBA sound (there should be no exposure at this level!)
This is more forgiving and comes from the O.S.H.A (Occupational Safety & Health Administration of the U.S.A.):
85dB 16hr
90dB 8hr
95dB 4hr
100dB 2hr
105dB 1hr
110dB 30min
115dB 15min
120dB 7.5min
I hope that my findings will help fellow UE-10 owners to listen to more safe levels. They will certainly guide me in the future.
Jerry tested UE5c too. They were consistently 1dB quieter than UE-10 Pro.
He did test with iPod too. But I still have to ask him the replaygain value for the songs he used (which are different from these three). I will publish iPod results ASAP.
First I will describe the experiment and the rationale behind it, then I'll provide the results, along with some comments.
As, hopefully, pretty much everybody in this forum is aware of, listening to headphones and canalphones at high volume is dangerous for the well being of our hearing. Hearing damage, once it happens, it's there to stay. So we should take great care of our one and only listening instrument.
With this in mind, I got in touch with Jerry Harvey, asking if he had the instruments necessary to conduct an experiment of the Sound Pressure Levels that UE-10 achieved inside one's ears, combined with the Rio Karma I usually use to listen with them.
He was ready to do that and confirmed that he had all the instruments necessary for this test, with the notable exception of the Rio Karma. Enter cmascatello who, very very generously, accepted to ship his own DAP to Jerry to test (I live in Italy, for me it'd have been really unpractical).
Now everybody would think "yes, but all songs have different recording volumes, the test would be pretty much useless unless you were listening only to the songs tested". True and I thought about that too.
Enter Replaygain. Replaygain is this nice technology whom many of you surely will be familiar with. For more detailed info, check this link. It boils down to a psychoacoustical analysis of a given music file to check how loud it sounds to our ears, with the target being to bring it under check, make all your music sound relatively at the same volume, avoid clipping, and so on and so forth. The volume target is usually set at 89dB for every song, with an "audiophile" setting available if you want to preserve the relative differences in volume of different tracks on the same album.
With this in mind, I reasoned that analyzing with Replaygain the tracks used for the test would help in coming up with results that could keep valid across all music. And the nice thing is that, upon examination of the results, it appears to work very nicely, give or take a couple of dB.
On with the results, now.
First, the values Jerry measured on cmascatello's Karma:
On Klark Teknic dn6000 A weight
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl
Volume 10 - 80db average/ 84db peak
Volume15 - 88db average / 92db peak
Volume20 - 98db average / 102db peak
Volume25 - 108db average / 112db peak
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started
Volume 10 - 77db average / 82db peak
Volume15 - 87db average / 92db peak
Volume 20 - 97db average / 102db peak
Volume 25 - 106db average / 111db peak
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box
Volume 10 - 74db average / 79db peak
Volume 15 - 83db average / 88db peak
Volume 20 - 94db average / 99db peak
Volume 25 - 103db average / 108db peak
These first results, without analyzing the recording levels of the different songs, already told me there was sense in this experiment. The Rio Karma, in fact, has been confirmed personally to me by a Rio engineer (UK Rio Engineer on Riovolution forums) to increase volume by 2dB per point of volume setting. We found this to be pretty much true for all these three songs (give or take one or, in one instance, two dB). And I did not share this information with Jerry Harvey at all (it came to me through an MP on Riovolution).
Now, on with the Replaygain analysis.
The three songs resulted with these average recording levels:
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl: 99.7dB
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started: 98.4dB
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box: 97dB
Again, these results are pretty much consistent with Jerry's findings, give or take a couple of dB. The difference is probably related to Replaygain psychoacoustic model, more than anything else. It's accurate, but to a certain extent, and obviously not as much as real measuring of real music reproduced through real speakers (or headphones in our case).
If we apply Realgain to achieve the 89 dB average replay level, we achieve these results with the three songs:
Track 1 / No Doubt - I'm Just A Girl
Volume 10 - 69,3dB
Volume 15 - 77,3dB
Volume 20 - 87,3dB
Volume 25 - 97,3dB
Track 2 / Pink - Get The Party Started
Volume 10 - 67,6dB
Volume 15 - 77,6dB
Volume 20 - 87,6dB
Volume 25 - 96,6dB
Track 3 / Alice In Chains - Man In A Box
Volume 10 - 66dB
Volume 15 - 75dB
Volume 20 - 86dB
Volume 25 - 95dB
As you can see, we still have this couple of dB of difference among the three songs. Let's average them, to come up to more "real" average SPLs at the different volume settings:
Volume 10 - 67,6dB
Volume 15 - 76,6dB
Volume 20 - 86,9dB
Volume 25 - 96,3dB
Even in a worst case scenario, taking into account the peaks for all the songs, we would get this:
Volume 10 - 72,3dB
Volume 15 - 81,3dB
Volume 20 - 91,6dB
Volume 25 - 100,9dB
Here is the suggested time of daily exposure for different SPLs. You can find several versions of this table. Some more strict, some more forgiving in their suggestions. This is kind of strict and comes from the Nova Scotia Department of Labour:
16 hours for 80 dBA sound
8 hours for 85 dBA sound
4 hours for 90 dBA sound
2 hours for 95 dBA sound
1 hour for 100 dBA sound
30 min for 105 dBA sound
15 min for 110 dBA sound
7.5 min for 115 dBA sound
0 min for above 115 dBA sound (there should be no exposure at this level!)
This is more forgiving and comes from the O.S.H.A (Occupational Safety & Health Administration of the U.S.A.):
85dB 16hr
90dB 8hr
95dB 4hr
100dB 2hr
105dB 1hr
110dB 30min
115dB 15min
120dB 7.5min
I hope that my findings will help fellow UE-10 owners to listen to more safe levels. They will certainly guide me in the future.
Jerry tested UE5c too. They were consistently 1dB quieter than UE-10 Pro.
He did test with iPod too. But I still have to ask him the replaygain value for the songs he used (which are different from these three). I will publish iPod results ASAP.