Home
AudioAsylum Trader
Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

For Sale Ads

FAQ / News / Events

 

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.

You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login


Login to access features only available to registered Asylum Inmates.
    By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username:

The Name that you picked or by default, your email.
Forgot Moniker?

 
 

Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".

Password:    

Forgot Password?

 Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:  
Your Email:  
Subject:  

Message Comments

   

Original Message

RE: SPL, rated power, and sensitivity question

Posted by mlsstl on January 11, 2022 at 11:54:41:

Particularly for rock/pop music, I don't buy the into the premise that there is a 25 dB range between average volume and instantaneous peaks on recordings.

As noted in another recent post I made, I spent a number of years converting over 1,000 LPs from vinyl to digital using Adobe Audition. This program gives a lot of information concerning average and peak levels. I can't think of a single recording I converted, including a lot of classical, where the average playback level allowed for 25 dB peaks, whether "instantaneous" or just "ordinary" peaks.

Particularly with digital, there is a maximum level that can be recorded. If the live musicians strike a peak louder than that max recorded level, it is either clipped by the recording itself, or is dynamically compressed by a limiter circuit or software algorithm. Even with LPs, the vast majority of them were originally recorded on open reel tape which has a very well defined max record level. And, with both analog tape and LPs, the more limited dynamic range means that is the average level is set too low, you are introducing more of the background noise of tape hiss and vinyl clicks and pops into the music.

Using the volume level bars on Audition, most of the recordings I've seen have an average level that is only 3 to 6 dB down from 0. There may be a few more dB of headroom above 0, but thinking there is 25 dB of range above average is in the territory of fertile imagination.

One observation, a lot of people forget that the dynamic range of any recording includes a lot of portions that are =below= the average level, even if it is only for the fade in/out of a pop recording. So, yes, an LP recording can have 50, 60 dB or more of dynamic range (and digital more than that) but the vast majority of range exists =below= the average playback level, not above.