[20q]

I listen to my music off my PC so perhaps I can find some "night mode" in an music player program that would work.

[Russell Dawkins]

You need a RNC compressor somewhere in your signal path.

Use the "Super Nice" mode (double compression).

 $200.

http://www.fmraudio.com/RNC1773.HTM

A cheap experimental solution is to put a small low voltage, low wattage light bulb in series with one conductor of each of your speaker leads. Choose a value that glows at levels you don't want to exceed (this is a potentially tedious and moderately expensive part of the exercise).

This is an old trick. It acts as a compressor, but it's usually hidden inside the speaker box where you can't see it. I have seen this used on fairly recent Tannoy speakers that were intended for commercial PA use, if you can believe it, as well as old guitar amps. The action is to compress approaching limits, then act as a fuse, ultimately.

If you don't really know what you are doing, DON'T DO THIS - buy the compressor! It's only $200 and should bring you much pleasure experimenting with various settings.

Once you have established what you like in compression (how many dB of gain reduction you like, etc.) why don't you inform us?

[*Scotty*]

Russell,I remember seeing these inside of more than one loudspeaker in series with the tweeter to protect it from too much power. Of course this was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and tweeters were rated for 5 to 10 watts.
Scotty

[Russell Dawkins]

Yes, I figured this out for myself around 1975 and thought I was very clever - then I saw that someone else had beaten me to it - and many years before! I think the idea goes way back.

[JackD201]

Russell,I remember seeing these inside of more than one loudspeaker in series with the tweeter to protect it from too much power. Of course this was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and tweeters were rated for 5 to 10 watts.
Scotty

Bose acoustimass speakers had these in their "sub" enclosures.

This is an interesting goal. Narrow dynamic range while still sounding good. Signal compression always sounds dirty to me with all that chuffing and pumping. Saturation and thermal compression in amps on the other hand have distortions that are fuzzy as the result of losing their grip on the speakers. This can actually be pleasing sometimes. Personally I would go with decent bookshelves in the 85 to 90 sensitivity range that go down at least to the 50s and use an amp using fat sounding input and output tubes in the 5 to 15 watt range. I'd say Octals for the inputs and perhaps 300B, el84 or el34s run SET or SEP in the latter two cases.

The result should be a speaker and amp combo that plays very well softly and lean heavily on warm and full but not have much jump even if you tried to goose them in which case soft clipping will make failure apparent but in a less violent way.

In my bedroom I have a system with the same characteristics. I use LSA1 bookshelves whose recommended minimum power is 20wpc but use an Antique Sound Lab 1005 which outputs only 8 watts via 300Bs. They make for very soothing background music and soft listening with good detail and texture but the outside world has got to be quiet if you know what I mean. When I have to compete with a noisy environment the system falls apart 

[drphoto]

I'm glad to see several people got on board w/ the OP's intent, even if it doesn't match their own. Me? I think LACK of dynamics is one of the biggest issues with most speakers. But that's what I want, not what he wants.

I'm pretty open minded and I think sometimes people here want to play it a little safe and be very PC, whereas I don't mind people mixing it up a bit. Unfortunately, sometimes, in a text format it can be hard to know if people are trying to be funny or just jerks.  (I suppose judicious use of emoticons can help)

But I don't think we should belittle someone who desires something outside of the parameters of what most of us would consider high end audio, especially if they present a valid explanation of what they want.

[JLM]

I'm not a videophile, but do wish that some DVDs had a compression option as the special effects get very loud after you crank the volume up to hear the dialogue.

[jriggy]

I'm not a videophile, but do wish that some DVDs had a compression option as the special effects get very loud after you crank the volume up to hear the dialogue.

Why not just adjust the level to the center channel only for movies that need it? I find myself doing this every other movie or so. Sometimes the dialog is to low and other times the effects lack dynamics and I want them louder... A quick change in the center channel level only, one way or the other allows for a usually quite good fix.