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So you have a great set up, you’ve done your research, bought the right speakers, placed them perfectly, tuned them in to get the best sound and treated your room to achieve acoustic perfection. That’s fantastic, now, how loud do you listen to music or movies? For most everyone that is a very personal choice but to gain a better idea of what level is appropriate it’s important to understand the intended listening levels from sound engineers who designed and mixed the audio for your ideal enjoyment. There is a term that is often thrown around across forums and websites alike: reference level. What exactly is it and how is it determined? Usually it represents a base level of 75 decibels (db) and the highest level on a movie track range at 105 db max at the listening position. Now, you could get a sound meter and calibrate this yourself or use a self calibration system like Audyssey, which is highly recommended, that is generally going to be present in almost any A/V receiver you might purchase these days and it’ll do it for you. This isn’t a set in stone number but it is often used in many home theater applications to provide a base level to tune a set up, many will exceed these measures quite a lot of the time. THX levels are set at 85 db with 115 db spikes with a subwoofer, however, a larger room will have a tougher time reaching these levels and many systems, regardless of room, will have trouble reaching these levels at seating positions. Why? Well, anything over 90 db is loud, over 100 db is REALLY loud and it’s unlikely you’d even want to play most content at or above these volumes. Imagine turning on a chainsaw in the middle of your living room, that’s around 105-110 db to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with when it comes to noise. A rock concert is roughly 115-120 db give or take and anything you subject yourself to above 85 db for any extended period of time has the potential to damage your hearing, possibly permanently. It also takes a lot of power to reach levels approaching these without distortion and damage to speakers and other equipment even if you have a very efficient system. Before we get too far down this path let us digress a bit and get a grasp as to what these db measures represent and how they pertain to real world noise levels. The metric that is used to express this via numerical value doesn’t represent itself in a typical linear fashion that one might think in respect to normal numbers. Basically, if you have a noise that is 60 db and a noise that is 70 db the noise that is 70 db is twice as loud, a 80 db noise is twice as loud as a 70 db and so on and so forth. I have measured some basic sounds with a sound meter around my home to give you an example these levels, when my kids aren’t awake in my quiet suburban home with all non essential appliances off my home sits at roughly 40 db, my car interior with the radio off at idle is around 55 db and cruising on the highway at 65 miles per hour is somewhere between 65-70 db. So, assuming maybe that 70 db might be the average noise level of a public place like a restaurant when it’s not especially busy, basically when you can have a discussion at normal conversation levels, we have a starting point to go on. So, I like to listen to music as most of us do and beyond 100-105 db is almost unbearable in my home and I like it considerably louder than the majority of people. 100 db would represent a noise level that is six times that of an environment that is suitable for normal conversation, you’d need to pretty much yell to be heard by those around you and to listen at that level for any amount of time isn’t going to be enjoyable for most people. Find a level that suits you and fits the environment that you enjoy movies/music the most, but bear in mind what your room and equipment will accommodate to achieve these levels.