What is your minimum SPL requirement?

[Smitty]

As the title says, what's your minimum when building a personal non-competitive daily listening system?

I know we all will take whatever extra we get as a bonus. In my case, I tend to listen at very moderate volumes. The level I bump to when driving solo and feeling a good song might be laughably low to many on here. In fact, I only go full tilt just out of curiosity when its first tuned and usually never again.

I will measure mine when I finish my build; however, I'm curious about others. Where is your base line?

[jtrosky]

Personally, I don't "target" and sort of SPL level. My system gets louder than I ever need it - and I like loud music - with only 75W RMS x 6! :-)

I'm more concerned with measuring the sound quality - not the sound quantity...

[NoDestiny]

Minimum is ~10dB higher than my front end can go. When I get into a "bumping it" mode, 160 would probably be my upper limit. Probably a good thing that I can't afford a 160 build.

(Happy with my single 15" Ultimax in my little Insight hatchback, probably does low 140's and gets down into the 20's with ease)

I'm more concerned with measuring the sound quality - not the sound quantity...

Unless you can only get 62dB out of it... then maybe a little quantity would be nice.

[SublimeZ]

To me, the whole point of audio is faithful reproduction of live music. That means concert level volume. (and a bass knob for when I wanna get stupid )

[Smitty]

Very interesting viewpoints. I'm looking forward to measuring mine but I don't think I ever get to concert levels.
My loudest back in the day was only in the 130's and I never ran it that loud except to measure. I just like to listen to music.

[geolemon]

It's fun to build some SPL in, but I never do that at the expense of sound quality.
Personally, lots of the things that can help sound quality also help SPL from the standpoint of efficiency - for example, simply "not using a tiny box".

I'm usually right in the 138dB-140dB range with nothing too unusual today, and not a whole lot of power (sub-600w).
But for my real daily needs, I'm probably 10dB below that.

I'm actually planning a completely new install in my current car, planning a removable sub in the back (safety measures and all), planning to do an invisibly-extreme set of small enclosures in all my door locations to hold some midbass drivers that could extend lower if needed, so that I can have a Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde system, taking advantage of DSP presets:

-- Mr. Hyde mode - sub amp channel disabled (sub box removed), high-pass on the door midbasses lowered to maybe 30hz to work more like a subsonic filter, to work like little subs.
-- Dr. Jeckyl hode - sub amp channel enabled, high-pass on the door midbasses raised to normal.

I am confident that with a smart midbass driver selection, even Mr. Hyde mode will blow most factory systems away, in terms of bass response, and likely will be totally fine for my usual daily listening even.
I'll just be missing the on-demand massages, really.

[Haakono]

To me, the whole point of audio is faithful reproduction of live music. That means concert level volume. (and a bass knob for when I wanna get stupid )

Agreed!

And I got to experience the ultimate(?) reference point for that when I first started getting into car audio in the mid 90s, when I was fortunate to see Pink Floyd live in 1994. That really set the bar for sound volume AND clarity combined. Pink Floyd was known for their extreme sound rigs, both in loudness and quality. Standing 150 feet from the stage, in a crowd of 35,000 people, and the bass line of "Sorrow" shakes your pant legs, while the sound is crystal clear, makes a life long impression that won't be reproduced at 90db in your car, however good the setup is

[Jdunk54nl]

Loud enough for me to enjoy but my ears not to hurt. When I have used my phone Sound Meter app in z weighted mode, that is usually somewhere around the mid 90's when I am by myself.

[mlekk]

115 decibels is loud to some [ concert level ]

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/who-loudest-band/

126 decibels @ 100 feet from stage

[geolemon]

115 decibels is loud to some [ concert level ]

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/who-loudest-band/

126 decibels @ 100 feet from stage

This is a possible good point to mention that this limit really grows as the frequencies get lower...
126 decibels at 8000hz and you'll be screaming for mercy, scrambling to cover your ears.
126 decibels at 40hz... you won't even be impressed, and certainly won't be covering your ears.

It's also true that as frequencies get lower, they travel farther - they decay less over distance. So if you start out with everything nicely balanced at 126dB, then start walking away from the sound source, you'll notice the highs and then the mids rolling off first, until you get way far enough away that all you can hear is the bass.

So any time you hear "That's louder than a jet fighter taking off!", that's not really fair. There's no mention or consideration (or even knowledge of) frequency. Usually I've seen that used as propaganda to make anti car-audio laws and things like that.