I have no idea what the output power of that specific mpow is, so I canāt say if that is normal or not.
As far as I know they hit around the 20-30 mw into 32ohm. But I could be wrong and I am not going to spend hours looking for a datasheet right now. It is too nice of a weekend.
That depends what you define personally as deafening and what you expect cleanly.
80 db? 90 db? 100db? 115db?
Technically all of those could cause permanent damage to your hearing, it just depends how long you listen for. Everyone also has different opinions on what is too loud when they are not told what db they are listening to and how dangerous it is.
Tests have shown that some people think 100 db is loud and others (especially those with younger ears), think 80 db is loud.
There is also the way your ear protects you from high volumes to take into consideration while also amplifying softer volumes.
An interesting way to see this contrast is to put both earpieces in, find a volume you think is a good listenable volume. Then take one earpiece out.
It should sound markedly softer. This might make you crank up the volume without you realizing that in actual fact you were already at a listenable volume.
If you were say at 80db you could now be at 90 db in one ear, and yes the difference can be that drastic.
Another way to test a similar concept is to again find a listenable volume, then crank it up a bit louder. Something you might consider rock out volume. You will slowly get used to it and it will no longer be as loud as you originally perceived it to be. Then after you have reached that point, turn it back to the original volume. It will now sound much softer than it originally did because your ears were closing up to block some of the sound.
So loudness is very subjective, unless you bring a physical device in to measure the ārealā loudness.
Completely separately to all of that. Studies have also shown that certain frequencies are perceived as being much louder at lower volumes than other frequencies when the volume is reduced.
For example, on an amp if you were to set the volume to 80/100 and that was a good volume to listen at. Everything is relatively even sounding, no sound stood out unless it was meant to.
Now drop that to 50/100.
Subjectively lower bass frequencies as well as the vocal range can seem not as reduced as the higher frequencies.
This has to do with your brain essentially looking for things in the now reduced volume. Specifically the human vocal range and thumping lower end. Evolutionary reasons for it.
Although this does not play into something being too loud, it is something interesting to know.
What does matter however is amping things correctly.
An example would be the fostex T20/40/50rp
All of which could technically be ran from a phone to listening ish levels.
However the frequency ranges that are harder to drive will not be resolved correctly due to their being reduced power.
Since I donāt have an mpow on hand I canāt test it to see if any of this plays into it.
On one hand we also have one person saying they have to āmax it out to get any sort of volumeā (which as you can imagine from a clean power point of view is not good), and on the other someone saying it is deafening.
We also donāt know what mpow @josh_porter is using and whether that one simply has less power or if it is the same as yours and your opinions are just different perhaps due to one of the reasons I listed above.
