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Comment by ashark | Hacker News Reader

Relatedly, does anyone know why so many bars with live acts crank the volume up so high that it becomes extremely loud white noise with thumping bass under it? It really sucks if you want to hear the music, and the point at which it's ears-ringing-the-next-day and clothes-vibrating loud but you can still at least tell when a key change happens is usually well under where they set it.

I love small venues, but I hate how bad the music sounds at so many of them. Does anyone actually prefer this?

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At small venues it's often just because the band is playing loudly. Some drummers play pretty loudly, some guitarists play amps that sound better with the volume cranked, and then singers are going to want the vocals louder in the monitors so they can actually hear themselves over the loud drums & guitar.

If stage volume is loud, the sound guy is likely going to push the volume even louder, both so that he has some level of control over it, and because sound coming off the mains is going to sound a lot clearer than if you're hearing everything off the stage monitors and then reflected off the back wall (yes, even if that means things are louder, they can still be clearer).

Interesting. I find it hard to imagine that the reflected sound from the wall could be worse than the ear-against-tv-speaker-volume-at-full-tuned-to-static effect that ~2/3 of small venues I've been to end up with, but that does explain the motivation for it, at least.

Well, in most cases the stage volume is already in so-loud-you-lose-clarity territory, so the clarity you gain from the sound guy turning up the mains a bit is worth the clarity you lose due to the extra volume. We're not talking massive increases in volume here.

I have a few theories:

- The people deciding already have significant hearing loss and don't realize

- People who are into venue sound stuff tend to like music very very loud

- The majority of customers are actually relieved not to have the burden of needing to carry on a conversation (b/c doing so is impossible).

Not sure which of the above it is. A similar mystery is why it's considered OK for motorcycles to be extremely loud, even with modified mufflers designed to make them louder. I don't buy the safety argument, since the same could apply to any motor vehicle or pedestrian.

>does anyone know why so many bars with live acts crank the volume up //

I'm going to go with the roadie who did the sound check is hard of hearing through standing next to big speakers and using loud music on in-ear phones; they set the level and then boost it to allow for the crowd.

Some people don't like to listen to music they like to feel it - if it's not giving you the disturbing feeling you're having palpitations then it's not loud enough! Discos for the deaf are like this apparently.

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