The greater impact of louder music (and larger screen sizes)

Maybe this is obvious – but I think not based on the way systems are designed.

But really loud music, that is AUDIOPHILE quality [or thereabouts] has a greater impact on the listener than quieter music does [or loud music that is not of high quality – where the ears have essentially shut down to filter out the garbage].

What do I mean by ‘impact’?

Impact, here, means Lasting Impact. Where most recollections of the music stir emotions more deeply than what they would if the music was not so loud. In fact, the same music, played quietly, may not stir much up at all, upon recollection.

Assuming that this is true for a moment…

Then the lasting impressiveness of organs and choirs in churches during the middle ages, and later, classical orchestras, and finally rock and roll bands, makes even more sense.

Also, that playing music softly allows the listener to step back and take in as much or a little as they want – and there is much less of a music ‘hangover’. Let’s face it, emotion in modern civilization, where someone starts spontaneously crying because they recalled a most wonderful refrain from the previous evening’s listening session – is just not well accepted. So people might purposely listen to music at a lower volume so that they can get up and do something later – or the next day – all in the interest of ‘maintain’ ing, as they used to call it.

Loud listening session also overlay memories of other listening sessions. Every time I hear the music at the end of the Matrix [sorry, forget who did that] I remember how it sounded when we played it REALLY loud here a few times. [which brings up a subject for another post… how much of what we are hearing NOW of a particular song is what we have heard BEFORE when we heard this exact same song. Are our listening impressions getting smeared through time?]

Some loud listening sessions do not work as well as others in generating deep lasting impressions. For me, concerts do not work all that well. Is that because of sound quality, distractions from the crowd, my friends, the higher stress levels of dealing with a sometimes unruly, or overly ruly, crowd? I don’t know.

I do think that it is a kind of function of loudness * sound quality * music quality * newness. I.E. that we get jaded. And also, a theory that I have no proof of, that our ears get tougher and less sensitive as we grow older – and the first times we heard the William Tell Overture when we were 6 years old, at atrocious quality and low volume, had significant impact whereas today we would chuckle and turn the durn thing off already 🙂

OK. Lots more to write about. It is the end of our fiscal year, Neli has been doing the books, and so we have been experiencing some of the boring side of the audio business here lately 🙂 And we have also been working very hard on expanding the arenas in which Audio Federation plays on the net… more later 🙂