Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Constant DSP 5200 DAMAGE!!!

Nick & John, I posted the db reading for calibration and playback. Can either of you, or anyone see a problem with the way it is playing back. Volume setting vs. db level.

Adi,

I would say it is similar to my findings earlier...extrapolating between my 85 and 90 and using your -3.5 vs my -1.0 and any variation in CD levels.

There is no way I could sustain that level of listening without damaging myself. 90 was window bursting stuff. Whether or not it would damage a driver I am not sure. The 8k's didn't show any sign of clipping or shut down.

JK, how do you reconcile the data with ref levels etc. Your post above suggests it should not be...but it is. Thoughts ?

PS...whatever happened to the chappie with 6k's that were too small for his room ??? This is a similar debate is it not?

I think this is different. Adidadi is running 5 small-ish speakers in a modest room. And the other chap was running very old (possibly broken large speakers and less experienced [I believe]) in a very large room.

The other chap the speakers did shutdown and these speakers did not shutdown before blowing drivers. Which to me is itself a problem idenpendent of eveything else. The Speaker should protect itself from blowing a driver.

Nick:
This disc is almost certainly compressed out the wazoo, with levels nearly always at 0dB FS. That said, here's a little chart to break down what 0dB FS is for various volumes vs what you're seeing on the meter. Note that Ref(1) is 1 speaker Ref(2) is two speakers. This further assumes when you calibrated, it was to 75dB SPL, c-weighted:

So in this case, theory and practice are lining up pretty nicely, and well within the bounds of your SPL meters acccuracy

Regards,

JK,

I'm not sure what 'wazoo' means?? But, when I put 110 dB on my earlier post you seemed surprised/disbelieving. Yet now 109 dB @ 90 M-speed now seems OK due to 'wazoo'. Can you explain?
The rig is calibrated to 75 as per usual routine. That's where the -1.0 comes from.

Anyway, w.r.t. the original query based on Adi's problem...whichever way you view it, listening at 100+ dB in any sort of room (treated or not) is not healthy. Whether or not 5200's should fail is another matter.

109dB's of any sort of music is an outrageous level...even if it sounds great

Nick:

Wazoo is a figure of speech. A US colloquialism for "lots and lots".

110 @ 85 setting is different from 110 @ 90 though, isn't it? That's why I was surprised.

You'd have to be a bit hot to hit that.

Getting back to Adi's problems, I do wonder why it's happening. The fact that it's happened across multiple channels seems to point away from a particular speaker and upstream.

Either that, or a truly cavernous space, but I thought we'd already addressed that one

Regards,

I could believe perhaps that 52's wouldn't handle it as well as 6/7/8k's simply due to the design. One thing is certain...anything in the 85+ region is hot whichever way we measure it.

Thanks for the education anyway.

Nick,

It would be interesting if you played back something that's of an older vintage that might not be so, ummm.... agressively limited for dynamic range to see how it compares at the same volume setting

Cheers,

JK,

Will do when the next family-free opportunity presents.

FYI, disc 2 of said Foo's album is in fact excactly that (and deliberatley so)....100% acoutsic only. Quite a contrast.

This is how I tried a few days ago with 861 in Cinema Mode, if the Compression set to Off I lost a few DBs of loudness but with Compression set to Mix I gained a few DBs of loudness. I just wonder if this makes sense.

Hi, Mix is just as it would be heard at the mixing desk, I think , and it does sound better to me on my 565.

Cheers, Chris