More Records that Can Only Sound Their Best Turned Up Good and Loud

Our good customer, Conrad, wrote us about his experience with a Stevie Ray Vaughan album a while back.

You can find the bulk of his letter here.

I wanted to make a point about one of his observations. (Emphasis added.)

“There seems to be a threshold level for this record at which it sounds congested below, but which it comes alive above (and how).”

Conrad,

You hit the nail on the head with your newfound appreciation of the sound of the two sides at louder levels.

We don’t know what our records sound like at moderate levels.

This is true for the electric blues albums of Stevie Ray Vaughan, but just as true for rock, jazz and even classical.

We don’t play them at moderate levels, and we don’t want to hear them at moderate levels.

There are at least two very good reasons for our position:

The first one is the most obvious — we don’t think music played at unrealistically low levels is very enjoyable.

And two, lower levels interefere with our ability to properly judge the sound of the pressings we play in our shootouts.

Playing records quietly too often obscures their faults.

It also reduces their energy, as well as whatever dynamic contrasts they might have, their ability to play clean in the loudest climaxes or choruses, and on and on down the list.

My First Question

If someone were to invite me to hear their system, my first question would be:

Do you play your records at realistic levels?

If the answer were no, I more than likely would stay home.

What is more frustrating than music that won’t come alive because it is simply not playing loud enough?

Audio Showrooms

Have you ever been in an audio showroom where they refused to play the system at anything but moderate levels?

Of course you have. They never turn their systems up loud because they know they are very likely to fall apart at loud levels.

(The rooms are at fault for at least some of the bad sound. Good room treatments are ugly and have the potential to scare away customers. Stereo stores want you to think you don’t need them, or can get by with some that are pleasing to the eye, but in my experience this is simply not the case, hence the ugly look of our studio, seen below.)

They are assuming that audiophiles won’t insist on hearing these showroom stereos at realistic levels (and finding out just how bad they are).

Based on my experience, that turns out to be a pretty safe bet.

It took me decades to figure out what was going with these audio salons. You couldn’t pay me to go into one now.

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