On 2007-05-17, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , John Phillips
wrote:
In deciding how much power to deploy, one of the interesting questions
that has proved difficult to answer definitively is "how loud is an
orchestra" (when you are in good seats not too far from the stage).

For me, the real questions here aren't so much with measuring the sound
level you'd get in such a seat. They are in translating that into what is
required at home in a domestic room.

There are various problems with this translation. ...
snip

My own experience is that the sound pressure levels required for a
convincing result at home are often far lower than those reported as being
present in the hall.

Yes, but the original level places an upper bound (or so I assume, in
accordance with your experience). Given the problems with the rest of the
translation (some of which you enumerate) it's a useful starting point.

For the above reasons I am quite doubtful of the claims made by Mobile
Fidelity that you need high power amps even with low efficiency speakers.
Although this will all depend a lot on the details of the listening room,
etc, etc.

I think these are the recent Musical Fidelity advertisements. If so
I agree. They set too high a target at 112 dBA (1 metre) and the 7 dB
loss they assume at 10 feet is too high for a realistic listening room.
Their figures come in at 3 dB above even my conservative targets.
Of course that suits their product range.

--
John Phillips