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RE: As someone once said.................so what?

Let's say that it's the brass that sounds loudest. How is it any different when I hear the brass blaring at 20 rows in the concert hall rather than at 3 feet from my drivers when I am listening near field? The pressure in my ear drums will be the same, the movement of the ear drums the same, etc...

Don't confuse peak and average SPLs. Peak SPLs are what test the limits of amplifiers and speakers. Average SPLs (over a musical phrase) correspond to the volume levels people notice at live concerts or when listening to recordings. Depending on the time period used for averaging, peaks can be anywhere from 15 to 20 dB louder. Thus an 85 dB average level for an FFF musical passage might have peaks around 105 dB. The reason for having a system that handles peaks of 115 dB or more is to have headroom, to avoid distortion, dynamic compression, or blown fuses/drivers.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar


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