LUFS "vs" DB output

[JustCauseWhyNot]

I hear that you don't wanna have db output louder than 78 if listening for the whole day. I wonder though how that interacts with autogain/lufs level. I ask here, because this is the only way to have system level loudness equalization on linux that I know of. If someone had in ear binaural microphones to use in order to get a pretty accurate measurement of the db output of a pair of headphones. Would they want to use other volume effecting effects to be used in order to maintain a consistent output across all applications, or would they wanna use there microphone's, and a tone generator like easyeffects builtin one that plays a consistent tone at a certain frequency in order to dial in the db output?

[wwmm]

db output louder than 78

Is this value right? It is strange it is a positive value. And independently of the value sign the number magnitude seems too big. In any case I never researched about the best volume for health when listening audio the whole day.

As far as I remember some references like the ears pain/damage threshold are measured by playing a sign wave around 1 kHz. Probably because our ears evolved to be more sensitive to speech frequencies. But for what you are trying to figure out this may not be the best approach. For example when listening to audio through headphones for long periods it is usually recommended to use a crossfeed because the excessive separation of the stereo sound caused by the headphones can be tiring. I would imagine that the whole frequency spectrum has to be taken into account when dealing with things like this.

But back to our autogain something to have in mind is that the library libebur128 it uses estimates perceived loudness. The sound intensity root mean square may or may not be more important than the loudness units when thinking about what is better for health.

[JustCauseWhyNot]

What is the main takeaway I should have? I'm sorry, but I need to be spoonfed information.

[wwmm]

I am not sure 😄 . Honestly I think you should just set a volume that feels comfortable without worrying too much about trying to match the values recommended in that dba chart. Without proper estimations of the sound intensity getting to your ears it will be hard to use it well.

[JustCauseWhyNot]

But what if you have a pair of in ear binaural microphones that could measure the sound?

[wwmm]

But what if you have a pair of in ear binaural microphones that could measure the sound?

Are they calibrated in a way you can get the sound wave intensity in Watts / m² so you can compare to the reference value of I = 10⁻¹² W/m² that was probably used to build that dba chart?

[JustCauseWhyNot]

Hmm. I do need to calibrate them. But I don't know how I could get the watts/m2.