Is there a right volume for different songs or is max always the answer

I was driving home last night and had this argument with my friend in the passenger seat. He says you gotta crank every song to max no matter what, but I think some tracks hit harder at like 75 percent especially if they have a lot of bass that gets distorted. My go to test is that one part in Bohemian Rhapsody where the opera section kicks in, it sounds terrible blown out but amazing at a lower volume. Am I overthinking this or do you guys adjust your volume based on the song too? Like do you have a song you always keep at a specific level?

2 comments

2 Comments

paulschmidt6d ago

Your friend is the kind of person who eats cereal with orange juice and calls it fine dining. There's a reason live sound engineers don't just slam every fader to 11 and call it a day. Some songs are like overeager golden retrievers, they need a little leash to keep from knocking everything over. That bass distortion you're talking about is real, especially in a car with stock speakers that start rattling like a maraca. I've got a whole playlist of songs I keep at like 65% because they just breathe better there. So tell your friend to keep his volume knob and his bad takes to himself.

wyattrobinson6d ago

Overeager golden retrievers" is a wild way to describe songs, but nah, max is always the answer. If your car speakers can't handle the full blast, that's a hardware problem, not a volume problem. Cranking it to 11 is the only way you actually feel the music in your bones, and that opera section in Bohemian Rhapsody is supposed to hurt a little, that's the point.