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> And in my opinion, a good pair always makes the music sound better. Yes. I can’t understand the thinking that goes into such extreme levels of amplification.

> And in my opinion, a good pair always makes the music sound better. Yes. I can’t understand the thinking that goes into such extreme levels of amplification. It sounds horrible, like my ears are clipping the waveform before my brain gets the audio signal. Is there a sound engineer out there brave enough to set the levels to a “reasonable” 95dB or what?

hunter2_ 7y ago
Sound engineer here. My goal is always to keep things as quiet as possible. It can be really hard to do so. The louder the mix, the more control you have because you have a larger ratio of PA sound to stage sound up front, and a larger ratio of PA sound to audience/bar noise in the back. The quieter the mix, the more the audience near the front gets overwhelmed with drums and whatever else on stage is naturally loud, and the more the audience in the back gets overwhelmed with the drunk people nearby. Basically, the necessary mix volume is established by getting the vocals to sit sufficiently above those uncontrollable things, and everything else falls into place. That said, plenty of engineers do mix too damn loud. They might have a good reason (and would compromise the mix by lowering it), but they might not (and are hurting people's ears unnecessarily).
- OscarCunningham 7y ago
  So the loud music + ear plugs combination might actually be optimal, because the net effect is to reduce the volume of all the nonmusic noise.
  - hunter2_ 7y ago
    Given the circumstances, sure. If you'd rather have conversations than shut them out, not so optimal.
- function_seven 7y ago
  Thanks. So what OscarCunningham said in sibling comment: Ambient and unwanted noise might be at 90dB. You need at least 20dB of headroom to get a good sound and range, so the PA might be (for an arbitrary attendee) at 110dB. Then I use my fancy flat-curve earplugs to chop 20dB off of everything, resulting in 90dB music and 70dB (and still drowned-out) unwanted noises. My numbers might not be right, but general idea, right?
  - hunter2_ 7y ago
    Absolutely. But even the flattest earplugs aren't flat because not all the sound goes through the canal they plug up. Bass conducts through your whole body so you end up with 110dB of bass, 90dB mids/highs, 70dB noise. The unattenuated bass isn't damaging your ears, but it makes a non-flat experience. This is why I recommended some -12dB earplugs in another comment.

hunter2_ 7y ago

Sound engineer here. My goal is always to keep things as quiet as possible. It can be really hard to do so. The louder the mix, the more control you have because you have a larger ratio of PA sound to stage sound up front, and a larger ratio of PA sound to audience/bar noise in the back. The quieter the mix, the more the audience near the front gets overwhelmed with drums and whatever else on stage is naturally loud, and the more the audience in the back gets overwhelmed with the drunk people nearby. Basically, the necessary mix volume is established by getting the vocals to sit sufficiently above those uncontrollable things, and everything else falls into place. That said, plenty of engineers do mix too damn loud. They might have a good reason (and would compromise the mix by lowering it), but they might not (and are hurting people's ears unnecessarily).

OscarCunningham 7y ago
So the loud music + ear plugs combination might actually be optimal, because the net effect is to reduce the volume of all the nonmusic noise.
- hunter2_ 7y ago
  Given the circumstances, sure. If you'd rather have conversations than shut them out, not so optimal.
function_seven 7y ago
Thanks. So what OscarCunningham said in sibling comment: Ambient and unwanted noise might be at 90dB. You need at least 20dB of headroom to get a good sound and range, so the PA might be (for an arbitrary attendee) at 110dB. Then I use my fancy flat-curve earplugs to chop 20dB off of everything, resulting in 90dB music and 70dB (and still drowned-out) unwanted noises. My numbers might not be right, but general idea, right?
- hunter2_ 7y ago
  Absolutely. But even the flattest earplugs aren't flat because not all the sound goes through the canal they plug up. Bass conducts through your whole body so you end up with 110dB of bass, 90dB mids/highs, 70dB noise. The unattenuated bass isn't damaging your ears, but it makes a non-flat experience. This is why I recommended some -12dB earplugs in another comment.