John Phillips wrote:
To pursue an academic thought (rather than a desire to annoy the
neighbours) I was thinking about whether "orchestral" sound pressure
levels can be reasonably achieved at home.

I think the answer is yes, from just personal listening experience in
the concert hall (classical orchestral music, not normally closer to
the stage than 10 metres) and listening at home. However the more
academic answer depends on at least two factors:

1. What peak SLPs are achieved in a reasonably good seat in a concert
hall where an orchestra is playing, say 10 metres from the front
centre of the orchestra?

2. What reasonable (relatively undistorted) peak SPLs will normal but
good quality home audio kit produce?

The answer to 2 looks fairly simple. Peak SPLs about 109 dBA seem
theoretically achieveable at 1 metre from an average sensitivity
loudspeaker (about 89 dBA for a nominal eight-ohm Watt, I think)
driven by a 100 W amplifier (+20 dBW). I think also that a reasonably
good modern loudspeaker could, in practice, go up to to 109 dBA on
occasional peaks (is this correct?).

Compensating for (i) being, say, 3 metres away from the speakers, but
in a non-anechoic space, and (ii) having two loudspeakers, I think
that 109 dBA probably comes down to 103 to 106 dBA peak SPL at the
listening chair (still VERY LOUD, nevertheless).


http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/faq...iselevels.html (Near the
end)

As you say, these are measured in the orchestra rather than from the
audience, but since you are using theoretical extrapolations for 2)
rather than measurement, why not do the same with the figures for the
violin, for example?

HTH

Neil