dB indicator flashing red

[PhilP]

Whilst at an orchestral concert the loudest can indeed be over 100dB, at a concert that big the quietest moments of music will probably be around 60dB, so the dynamic range will rarely be more than 50dB.
I am glad I have not been to a rock concert at 150dB! The threshold of pain is around 120dB! but generally rock music has less dynamic range than classical, so even if the painful peaks were 150dB the equally painful quieter bits would probably still exceed 120dB, so 16 bit audio will still be plenty.
The difficulty will be, as ever, the choice of microphone.

I think I have a pretty quiet listening room. About 30dB background (40dB when the heating is running) 96dB on top of that is 126 to 136dB, which is not only hearing damage after a relatively short time but way outside the capability of the analogue side of any domestic sound system. So the dynamic range capability of CD is way more than is needed for even the biggest dynamics of classical music, which is just about possible to get on LP too, though it is very, very difficult to get the levels set accurately enough for LP. A bit too high and there is mistracking on loud bits, a bit too low and the quiet bits are ruined by hiss. 16 bit digital is easier, 24 bit digital requires no skill at all
The maximum loudness of an orchestral concert is very loud at the conductor's position, thankfully not as loud where I sit. I have been making recordings for over 50 years, and now I have an app on my phone, sometimes measure the loudness and dynamic range at concerts. The peaks are frequently well over 100dB but the dynamic range rarely more than 50dB, even for Mahler and his ilk, less for classical period composers.
I am not familiar with the numbers you quote, but the singer one is not correct (I record classical singers mainly). At the post-course concert at a singers workshop last year one of the sopranos was registering 90dB at my listening position 1/3 way down the small auditorium.
The dynamic range of older non classical recordings I have checked (years ago) are more like 25dB iirc, not awful like some of the loudness war casualties, but still trivial for 16bit audio to encompass.

Thanks, I find this all very interesting - especially your experiences of making recordings.  The loudest concert I ever went to was The Orb  - it was so loud that I felt my trousers  flapping in time with the bass...

Anyway, I was keen to find out more about this so I did some reading and came up with the following:

DR as high as 118dB on a dithered audio stream is necessary for subjectively noise-free playback of music in a quiet listening environment (Ampex, 1981).  Other sources quoted 120dB so I assume this is about right.  Apparently noise-dithered 16-bit digital can give a perceived DR of 120dB...

The max DR of a live classical concert is around 80 dB so, as you say, well within the limits that can be captured on a CD.

BTW, the general recommendation is that SPLs of > 100 dB should be avoided as hearing loss is likely. 120db is generally considered to be the pain threshold.

I couldn't find any info on the actual DR of a complete hi-fi playback chain i.e. source-amp-speakers.  There were some vague references which indicated 60-70dB but I couldn't find anything concrete.  Do you have any info on this?

I found this Dr Lex article to be a good souce of info on trends in recording and the Loudness Wars.

This article on musicmachinery has some interesting analysis of the way the loudness of recordings has changed over the years.