Did you check whether the free access allows them to listen to your microphone at any time even when the app isn’t in use?
I just downloaded and compared these two apps, and the Decibel X app seems to give readings about 10 dB quieter than the other one.
I just downloaded Decibel X and it is telling me my music is currently up to 120 dB. Given that it is pretty quiet for me right now and my hearing is still ok (unless I just can’t hear anyone telling me otherwise), their is something wrong with those numbers.
I just switched to a previous app and it is maxing out at 80, so 40 dB difference.
Unfortunately, all this has taught me is not to trust them. I see they can be calibrated, but I assume I would need to buy a real one to do that, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the apps.
I’ve a reasonable sized lounge and thankfully don’t have to worry about neighbours.
It’s taken a lifetime to be able to afford a system that can even come close to reproducing the gig experience of the early 80’s (before ‘health and safety’ stuck its oar in). When I have the house to myself it’s good to feel the music as well as hear it.
One of my fondest memories is seeing Motorhead at Birmingham Odeon and feeling the breeze from the PA. Live music these days is so quiet you can actually talk over it 
Yes!
I saw them at B’ham Odean on tour in 1980 (ish) when I was 16.
It was so good that I went again the next night on my own!
From Solihull on the train.
I followed them religiously after that first encounter. Now very, very sadly missed.
Funnily enough I now live in Solihull. Small world 
Woodside Way…that was a nice road to grow up on in the 60s.
I was one of those that used to lay in the Motorhead bass bins…
FWIW, I’d say the A1 ran illegally hot. If that had been my product I would have been in a perpetual state of unease, worrying how many houses it might burn down. As I meant to mention to @Richard.Dane, my A1 blew up for no apparent reason - and then blew up again on the repair bench for good measure. The A370 also had a problem when I got it, which was an (unsurprisingly) overheating 1k8 resistor which was used to drop the rails from 68V to 12V (!!!) to power the LM318 op amp that controlled the whole thing. That really is guerilla design and I sincerely hope there are no other manufacturers who have done it that way in the last 60 years. The resistor had melted its solder so often that it eventually became open circuit, shutting off the front end of the amp.
PS. That’s quite a while ago for Jimmy’s system, I think. I was always impressed with the sound of his system and I still wonder if anyone has produced a better tonearm than that Breuer. What a thing of beauty it was!
Happy days 
And how large are the speakers to be able to produce 110dB, average?
I remember JMH writing a review of the Breuer in Hi-Fi Answers several decades ago. I recall his admiration of the design and appearance and also his slight disappointment with the sound. Can’t remember if he used it for long or not.
I found his equipment journey quite fascinating in that he went from tri-amped Isbariks (Naim 250’s) to using Krell power amps. At this point he seemed to me to lose the plot a bit. At one point I’m sure I recall him using DNM amps with some low-cost Arcam bookshelf speakers that he’d took the stuffing out of! It seemed a bizarre thing to be using after the Linn/Naim Isobarik set-up - which then was a truly high-end system.
He then discovered the Impulse H1 horn-loaded speakers which I believe he stuck with for decades. I read that recently he ditched these for a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls. I was fascinated as I have the Klipsch Forte III’s, the one below them in the range.
What did he have when you heard his system? I saw some photo’s of his listening room and flat and it looks basically like a storage facility for records and CD’s!
Hi Jimdog,
On the first question no it never occurred to me to check thr mic permissions, and in fact I see the choices allowing it to use or not (which of course would not allow it to work!) So for full security, if using an app like this and not able to have it use the mic only when the app is being used, it might be best to delete the app and only reinstall it on the occasions when you want to use it
Re Accuracy and consistency between apps:
As also raised by @Artoly, when I originally did some app comparisons, at that time using all the free ones I could find for the iPhone, I tried both on my iPhone and iPad, and those two (Decibel X and dB Volume) were very consistent with each other and with anticipated readings given awareness generally of some types of sound levels. Interestingly trying today, I get about 4dB difference between the two on my iphone (after making sure they were set to read the same thing), and Decibel X gave about 5 dB difference on iPad compared to iPhone, while dB Volume wouldn’t work properly on iPad.
My original testing was on an earlier iPhone, maybe earlier iPad, and there have also been many operating system updates since. These differences, and even more so the reported experiences if others, makes me withdraw my endorsement of these two apps.
What anyone needs to do if they do not have a calibrated meter and want to measure sound level in a reasonably meaningful way us to conduct their own tests with any apps that give them the features they like, look up reference values for various common sounds that they can readily access, and pick an app that gives readings consistent with the expected values. And then periodically, and certainly after any device change, recheck before placing any meaning on the readings, all the while remembering that without calibration and validation the readings can only be indicative.
That makes sense.
It’s why I’ve never used these free apps previously because they are a fudge for doing it with a good mic.
Do you know which version of the amp that was? Originally released the Empire a red indicator lamp, small red writing and a red tramlines around the periphery of the front panel. If memory serves there were some quite early small revisions to the design. Then they did some more substantial changes (though I don’t know what), and released as the A370-3 However, I’m not sure that the front panel changes coincided with the modifications to electronics. The original red trim version with red tramlines around the periphery of the front panel gave way to new styling still with red lamp but no tramlines, instead “musical fidelity” and three horizontal lines in pale blue and bearing the model numberA370 in white. Later the light was changed to blue. And later still A370 changed to read A370-2. But I read somewhere that they didn’t change the front panel immediately upon release of the major electronics revision, some of the final electronics design not saying A370-2
Not sure what size has to do with it? You do not need large speakers to produce high sound levels! If you forego bass you can easily get 105dB/W at 1m from quite a small speaker with midrange upwards using horns. In such a case an average power level of 32W, readily achievable by most amps and handleable by many speakers would give 120dB average at 1m, and in stereo listening 4m away (and some people listen closer) that would be at least 111dB. That’s a fairly extreme example, but really there is no direct practical correlation between size of speaker and efficiency, some larger ones being quite a bit less efficient than some smaller ones.
Interesting thread, as I have to change the volume setting depending on my source as follows.
Radio: 20 to on the knob, max dBA 60
Streaming: 20 to, maxdBA 59
Satellite TV: 1/4 to maxdBA 56
TV streaming: 1/4 to maxdBA 59
These levels are lower than I expected largely because my room is quite small (5mx4m) with a low ceiling. Occasionally my late night listening will take levels into the 70’s dBA.
When I decided to have an active system I was impressed that I could listen at low levels; this continues to be the case.
His flat was exactly like that. No one could accuse Jimmy of not buying hi fi for the music. There would always be two feet of unlistened to records which were generally just that weeks’ acquisitions. He had 3 x 250s the first time I heard it and later a Six Pack of 135s. In spite of the odd placing of the Isobariks below you it was a superb, immersive, listening experience - which is what I generally like. He probably had an Asak in those days but may have been moving towards Koetsu. I don’t suppose it will have made much difference but I can see why anyone would have wanted a bit more precision and detail than the Asak (which I love as a cartridge). I think he always liked DNM but I’ll guess he was still using either a 12S or a 32 at this point in time. He was also trying out some speaker cables with fully insulated strands - predating Naim by several decades. I tried to copy these but not having a solder bath in those days, getting the enamel off them to solder was beyond a labour of love and I eventually gave up. But I didn’t have much doubt it helped.
I remember him going over to Krells - though I can’t remember if he went over to passive Isobariks to do so - but he did invite me over to KJ for a dem of them where I rather failed to get their USP. Retailer dem rooms are usually terrible and I still don’t know how anyone makes any decisions in them. Perhaps my rather blessed (and then unappreciated) amplifier history of Radford SC22 and STA50 (?) 25 (?) at school and Leak Stereo 20 at university meant I wasn’t wowed by just another Class A amp but I remained unconverted. Interestingly, Martin Colloms recently re-reviewed the KSA-50 and rather amusingly said it was like taking an E-Type out for a spin. I would say the opposite was true of the A370 I had, and the surprise there was just how it hadn’t dated in sound and was competing to do the same things as any modern amp - and did them well.
I can understand him going for high efficiency speakers. There is definitely something they can deliver that standard speakers simply do not. I’ve discussed this with one or two designers - one of whom makes a sort of egg moulding for his horn - and while we can’t put our finger on what it is, you definitely don’t seem to hear any non-linearity of the air. The voice coils all seem to enjoy running cool even though dynamic compression is actually quite hard to even find in domestic setups - you definitely get it in PA systems but measurements don’t really seem to bear out its existence in a hi fi setting. Keith Howard and I both did measurements trying to find it in tweeters at around the same time and, independently, we could barely find any heating at all, let alone something potentially catastrophic. That leaves radiation resistance as the remaining possible reason they work well but certainly my arguments for that are fairly handwaving at the moment. It’s kind of as though coupling to the air is the main job, and once that’s out of the way that’s almost the speaker’s job done. And nothing couples a speaker to the air quite like a horn.
That has long been my understanding, from my first learning about speaker design.
