On 2008-10-13, Eeyore wrote:
John Phillips wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
It would depend on various factors: What kind of music you like. How large
your listening room is. What speakers you will be using. etc.
Classical music - not excessively loudly but of course orchestral
climaxes can be loud.
Digital sources - not vinyl.
Room 11' x 13' x 8' high (rather small probably for the speakers Focal
JMLab Chorus 714V Power handling 130W max (90W nom) Sensitivity 91dB)
An orchestra even in the auditorium can peak at over 120dB.
Do you have a reference for this? I have been looking for credible
sources for peak orchestral SPLs in the auditorium for a long while.
It's a 'well known fact' amongst audio professionals. Google it.
I have indeed Googled it rather extensively. What I mostly see is
unsupported assertion that seems to have been copied without question
from unsupported sources. I have seen no good, well-documented evidence.
This is why I am interested in asking.
I have quite a few health & safety measurements of very good credibility
inside the orchestra and a few at the conductor's rostrum.
In other words completely useless because they haven't the tiniest clue what
they're measuring. Thankfully or even orchestras would have to be banned from
playing for HSE reasons.
You have it quite wrong. The H&S reports (typically for North American
orchestras) are not always perfect but they usually are good enough
at specifying the instrument and what it was set to measure. On the
credibility scale they rate generally well. I am happy to accept peak
levels inside the orchestra well on the eye-watering side of 130 dB SPL.
However while these are good enough measurements for checking musicians'
exposure to sound, they don't give the positional data for source and
measurement to allow projection to levels in the auditorium.
However I have only semi-credible figures for places in the auditorium and they
only go up to 109 dB SPL.
A or C weighted on fast or slow response ? The average dB meter is about as useful
as a wet blanket when measuring either impulses or frankly most music. There is no
correlation between industrial hearing damage levels as measured by a typical dB
meter and music because the waveforms and wavefronts are WILDLY different.
Good questions - these are exactly why I am not happy with the
"semi-credible" source in question. BTW this particular source was the
one Musical Fidelity used in the advertising that's been brought up later
in this thread. And used by HFN in its fairly recent "how much power do
you need" articles.
So, at the risk of giving offence I am afraid I am still not prepared to
assign any credibility to unsupported assertions of "well known fact".
For exactly the reasons you state. That's why I am still interested in
seeking credible, well supported data.
--
John Phillips
Amplifier power
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