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Tricks to Get Great Sound at Low Volume

H

hobby

Active Member
I find that loudness helps to flesh out the sound a lot at low volume, but I feel like that may be a bit of a band-aid. I’d like it to sound great straight from the source as well.

Are there any general tricks to achieving a full but detailed sound at low volume? I live in a condo and try to always be cognizant of my neighbors.

Looking for general tips to use on any system, but anything specific to my condo setup could help too, as low volume listening is the biggest consideration here.

My setup is: Elac ub51 bookshelf speakers on 28” stands
Akai- AA5810 integrated amp
Dual 1245 and Fluance RT81+ turntables
Denon DCD 590 cd player
In a small 10.5’x10.5’ room (haven’t gotten to decorate yet)
IMG_3056.jpeg
 
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Loudness compensation is to compensate for how the human ear deals with lower volume sounds, not your system per se. That is, your system is most likely performing the same whether the volume is low or high (provided you don't try to go past its rated power output); it's just that we hear it differently. So yeah, nearfield listening or headphones are the best ways to deal with it.
 
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First thing I would trying is putting them on the floor or even better in the corners. This boosts bass response (I recall +3db per room boundary) and make for a more even (apparent) response. Kudos to you for being a considerate neighbor!
 
Depending on the system and situation, I usually play flat or without tone engaged. However, regardless of volume, I am comfortable using the loudness/contour/tone controls to get the best results for my ears and playing conditions. You might want to experiment with speaker placement as others have suggested, including toe-in angle to the listener. Happy listening!
 
hobby said:
I find that loudness helps to flesh out the sound a lot at low volume, but I feel like that may be a bit of a band-aid. I’d like it to sound great straight from the source as well.

Are there any general tricks to achieving a full but detailed sound at low volume? I live in a condo and try to always be cognizant of my neighbors.

Looking for general tips to use on any system, but anything specific to my condo setup could help too, as low volume listening is the biggest consideration here.

My setup is: Elac ub51 bookshelf speakers on 28” stands
Akai- AA5810 integrated amp
Dual 1245 and Fluance RT81+ turntables
Denon DCD 590 cd player
In a small 10.5’x10.5’ room (haven’t gotten to decorate yet)
View attachment 3417588
Click to expand...

Do you use the "LOUDNESS" control on your amplifier?

It is there for low-volume listening. Give it a try.
 
Can you define "low volume" are we talking about 40db or 80db? Is this level self imposed, or have something been said about your listing levels?
How close are your neighbors? What wall do you share?

Some context. Have a 2 story house, dedicated listing room on ground level, all bedrooms above. Almost all bedrooms are right over my stereo room.
I'm an early riser, listen to music when making coffee and starting my work day (WFH). My morning listening is between 50-60db. It does not bother anyone in the house, it sounds very good from my listening spot.

It does look. like your room is not setup for optimum sound. The speakers are in the wrong spot, that bookcase is in the way, and that door is killing it.
Do you listen off-axis on the left that looks like a desk? Just about every speaker sounds best in an equilateral triangle. Most speakers need to be off the walls, think yours are rear ported? They need to be at least 2ft out, father apart, and some toe in. All of that will really help! Also if you adjust the speakers you will be able to raise your volume without exciting the walls. Louder in-room with quieter outside the room.
 
As someone that builds custom musical instruments I can tell you it is more complicated than that. That reason music is written at various levels for different parts is also based on what dynamic you need to hit to get various sounds of various instruments.

What do I mean? Lead trumpets almost always play louder than the rest of the section especially in big band! Why? It is diffacult to get a trumpet to have the overtones and sizzle at low dynamics. It can be done but then you have to build a trumpet that kind of becomes a one trick pony.

So if I want to make a trumpet that will sizzle at lower dynamics "think volume or spl" I have to make the bell much much thiner than I would a general purpose trumpet so that the metal can be set into motion to the point that it just starts to distort when played at much lower volume levels. The thing is that sound is not going to work for 99% of trumpet parts and will not work for anyone that sits in the section it becomes a trumpet that is only good for lead work or solo playing.

So to get a speaker to sound like a speaker sounds at 88db or louder but at say 60db you have to make all of the moving mass lighter much lighter. It has to start and stop faster than a normal speaker. So part of that is making the speaker a bit smaller but smaller alone is not the key. The voice coil parts need to be lighter. The spider stiffer and you have to get that surround just right. Once you get that under control the crossover has to be perfect. The down side is that it also will run out of steam sooner as well!

It is not impossible to do just diffacult and you end up with a product that is almost a one trick pony. These are the sort of speakers audiophiles will pay a fortune for since there is ZERO mass market appeal to a speaker that sounds like a speaker playing at 88db to 100db but at 70db. You want to be on the virge of cone break up with out actual reaching cone breakup.

Just listening at lower power levels and lower db levels is not the same as to me "Tricks to Get Great Sound at Low Volume" you truly have to build a completly different style of speaker to truly get that.

Decades ago I even played around with making speaker cabinets out of "tone wood" very thin and in the way that one builds guitars using guitar tone woods and paper laminet construction. It was quite the adventure since I was trying to use cabinet resonance as part of the sound which is not what we do with modern speaker design at all! That is how I discovered how critical cone mass adn stifness was.

No free lunch in this world. I think this is why so many people listen to their music around 79db to 89db when they really want that shimmer, brilliance, sizzle tot he sound during very dynamic sections and powerful emotional sections then we turn it down again to more comfortable level! Most people I know do that especially when listening alone.

Eraly on in the thread someone mentioned near field which is a very good point. Pullup up your chair closer tot he speaker and getting them out into the room a bit more are both good ways to improve the sound. Figuring out how much toe in you need for your speaker and room always important as well!
 
I enjoy listening to music at lower levels, my old Proton DPD 540 has a Loudness button that boosts the music, but I never liked it that much was too boomy, and then it also has a Bass EQ button that works great with low volume listening, only discovered that recently when I used it while I was working on my NAD 317.

The NAD 317 does not have a Loudness or Bass EQ buttons, and while it sounded good at lower volumes, turning it up a little bit, and then a little bit more, made it sound better, but it was easy to get to a volume that would irritate my ears if played too long, even cause temporary tinnitus.

Then I got a Marantz Model 50 integrated amp, in part because it was designed to sound good at lower volumes, it does that by not attenuating the source signal at lower volumes (like some other preamps), but instead reduces the gain on the source signal (often fixed with other preamps) that is needed to get the source signal into the proper range for the Volume control. As a result, literally more of the source signal is heard at lower volumes compared to some other preamps. And so it sounds great at lower volumes with no "step" in SQ as you increase the volume. As a result, I have not been increasing the Volume a little bit more, like I did sometimes with my NAD for songs I really liked.

So for your system, maybe adding an equalizer, or something that mimics the Bass EQ on the Proton, would help.

I realize you were thinking of things to do with the room, or position of speakers, but not sure messing with that will help significantly if your integrated amp is attenuating the source signal at lower volumes. But you could try the Loudness button and see, it may be better than on my Proton, or increase the Bass w/o Loudness.

Maybe an expert will comment on what the Proton Bass EQ does, it really does make music sound good at lower volumes.
 
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If you're wanting the low volume chiefly because of not wanting to bother folks your neighbors or folks you live with, then it might be worth investigating headphones. I went for some years before I bothered with headphones, but now I have two sets of them that I both found for cheap and have been quite happy with - a set of HiFiMan Sundara and Sennheiser HD6xx headphones, that I run through a Gustard headphone amp, but a headphone amp might not be necessary for you depending on whether your amp dives phones and how well. Headphones are different experience for sure, but they can be really satisfying to listen to and for a somewhat modest investment. For what it seems like you're looking at, you could get open back phones, which bleed some sound, but tend to sound better, all else being equal, to closed back styles. I don't really have the issue of needing to listen privately, but I sometimes put on headphones simply because they sound so good...
 
Well the good news is that it sounds pretty good, even great with the loudness. I'm shocked at the clarity and depth of sound given the room and the cost of the system all said and done. Had people bring LPs over for a spin once I got the system running and everyone was pleasantly surprised. But some boomier bass parts get a little excessive. Turning down the bass a bit helps and really gets the system right where it needs to be. Volume at preset (I measured what I thought would be a reasonable volume- 42db peak at the nearest shared wall), loudness on, and bass at -1, everything else at neutral really sounds quite good.

I have the speakers set as far apart as they can without interfering with other stuff, and I'll start moving them out away from the wall when in use and practicing near field listening- my chair is already only like 8' away though.

Mike_S said:
Can you define "low volume" are we talking about 40db or 80db? Is this level self imposed, or have something been said about your listing levels?
How close are your neighbors? What wall do you share?

Some context. Have a 2 story house, dedicated listing room on ground level, all bedrooms above. Almost all bedrooms are right over my stereo room.
I'm an early riser, listen to music when making coffee and starting my work day (WFH). My morning listening is between 50-60db. It does not bother anyone in the house, it sounds very good from my listening spot.

It does look. like your room is not setup for optimum sound. The speakers are in the wrong spot, that bookcase is in the way, and that door is killing it.
Do you listen off-axis on the left that looks like a desk? Just about every speaker sounds best in an equilateral triangle. Most speakers need to be off the walls, think yours are rear ported? They need to be at least 2ft out, father apart, and some toe in. All of that will really help! Also if you adjust the speakers you will be able to raise your volume without exciting the walls. Louder in-room with quieter outside the room.
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Nothing has been said and my girlfriend thinks I'm being paranoid but I just have a really hard time getting into the music and enjoying it if I think I may be bothering someone. It becomes all I can think about instead of following the music.

This room is over our garage and shares no walls. We are on the second floor so this room is completely isolated from any neighbors, which is why we chose it as the music room. I think the walls are pretty thick- the only time I hear any neighbors is when the toddler next door is scream-crying in the quietest hours of the late night/early morning. I figure that's around 80db or more pretty close to a shared wall. Never hear anyone's music, tv, or talking.

65db in the room comes out to about 45db at the nearest shared wall and that's probably the loudest I've had it- figured low 40s at the wall was a safe bet that nobody would hear it.
 
RunOutGroove said:
If you're wanting the low volume chiefly because of not wanting to bother folks your neighbors or folks you live with, then it might be worth investigating headphones. I went for some years before I bothered with headphones, but now I have two sets of them that I both found for cheap and have been quite happy with - a set of HiFiMan Sundara and Sennheiser HD6xx headphones, that I run through a Gustard headphone amp, but a headphone amp might not be necessary for you depending on whether your amp dives phones and how well. Headphones are different experience for sure, but they can be really satisfying to listen to and for a somewhat modest investment. For what it seems like you're looking at, you could get open back phones, which bleed some sound, but tend to sound better, all else being equal, to closed back styles. I don't really have the issue of needing to listen privately, but I sometimes put on headphones simply because they sound so good...
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Good rec too- I have Kef MU7s that I like well enough, but find myself preferring speakers. I didn't know open back designs were a thing, that may provide more of the open atmosphere I like in speakers. Thanks
 
Sandman1221 said:
I realize you were thinking of things to do with the room, or position of speakers, but not sure messing with that will help significantly if your integrated amp is attenuating the source signal at lower volumes. But you could try the Loudness button and see, it may be better than on my Proton, or increase the Bass w/o Loudness.

Maybe an expert will comment on what the Proton Bass EQ does, it really does make music sound good at lower volumes.
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I don't think it is attenuating significantly. It sounds really clean and detailed and I'm happy with it. I'm just splitting hairs looking for that extra 10%, seeing I can get some even better sound for free/cheap
 
Sandman1221 said:
I enjoy listening to music at lower levels, my old Proton DPD 540 has a Loudness button that boosts the music, but I never liked it that much was too boomy
Click to expand...
The problem with a simple loudness button is that it assumes your speakers are a certain efficiency. You see, the loudness contour decreases as the volume is raised, until, past a certain volume level, it doesn't have any effect at all. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. However, if your speakers are more efficient than the engineers anticipated, you'll get too much; if they're less efficient you'll get too little. And it's a similar problem if the input level of a certain source component is lower or higher than average. It's just a dumb control, based on the physical position of the volume knob.

Some higher end amps, most notably from Yamaha, although I'm sure there are others, had an adjustable loudness contour. You set it to the correct level when you first set up your system, and then the volume control would handle the rest. This feature is long gone, though.

ETA: apparently Audyssey offers this feature, but I don't know if it's in all Audyssey receivers.
ETA2: The Sherwood HP-1000/HP-2000 amps had it too.
 
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swechsler said:
The problem with a simple loudness button is that it assumes your speakers are a certain efficiency. You see, the loudness contour decreases as the volume is raised, until, past a certain volume level, it doesn't have any effect at all. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. However, if your speakers are more efficient than the engineers anticipated, you'll get too much; if they're less efficient you'll get too little. And it's a similar problem if the input level of a certain source component is lower or higher than average. It's just a dumb control, based on the physical position of the volume knob.

Some higher end amps, most notably from Yamaha, although I'm sure there are others, had an adjustable loudness contour. You set it to the correct level when you first set up your system, and then the volume control would handle the rest. This feature is long gone, though.

ETA: apparently Audyssey offers this feature, but I don't know if it's in all Audyssey receivers.
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Thanks for that swechsier. So can you explain what the Bass EQ does? Sorry hobby for a digression, it was so good sounding, curious what it does.

But good to hear your system works well with the Loudness control!
 
I think swechsler will be pleasantly surprised to learn that Yamaha amps still have Loudness knobs that are separate from the volume knob. The R-N600A is the least expensive one that has the feature.

AVRs that support room EQ like Audyssey or Dirac (like my Marantz Cinema 70s) may also support dynamic loudness after using the microphone to measure in-room response. In that case, the amp itself learns how loud it is with the speakers attached.
 
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