loudnes control

thesurfer

Local hi fi dealer says you shouldnt use loudnes control, to add db,s what say you folks,, think hes talking recievers,,,

F1nut

Tone controls are evil, that includes the loudness control.

thsmith

What is loudness control ? J/K, I have some old receivers that have it but never use it. New stuff has no tone or loudness controls. A freind of mine that repairs audio equipment disbales all that stuff.

Libertyc

Loudness was good in the car back in the day. My preamp has volume and a source switch.

heiney9

Don't use it or tone controls. None of my gear has tone controls. They are evil and completely useless in correcting issues which are beyond the scope of typical tone controls.

H9

Erik Tracy

thsmith wrote: »

What is loudness control ? J/K, I have some old receivers that have it but never use it. New stuff has no tone or loudness controls. A freind of mine that repairs audio equipment disbales all that stuff.

If I can remember that far back....as I recall the Loudness button is meant to be used at low volume settings that boosts the low and high end of the audio spectrum - something to do with human hearing being less sensitive at lower voluems to those ends of the audio spectrum, so at low volumes the Loudness button compensates for this to 'even out' the tonal balance.

Newer AVRs have auto-calibration features - so if you run those, then aren't you in a sense using 'tonal controls'?s

Libertyc

Yes Erik that is exactly what the loudness button did. It was for low volume and boosted the highs and lows. It sounded good especially in car audio with the older cars and all that road noise.

mhardy6647

No loudness; no tone controls. They are evil, indeed - more harm than good relative to my ears and tastes.
The living room hifi no longer includes an active preamp; only a source selector switch and "trimmer" volume adjustment pots on the sources.

Erik Tracy

Libertyc wrote: »

Yes Erik that is exactly what the loudness button did. It was for low volume and boosted the highs and lows. It sounded good especially in car audio with the older cars and all that road noise.

Practically all 'vintage' receivers and int amps that I saw or owned had them too.

In my younger years of ever questing for recreating concert levels in my abode, the "Loudness" button remained in use.....sad...yes....I confess....I have grown wiser... :biggrin:

heiney9

If your gear is good enough no loudness control is needed for low level listening. HT AVR's are a different catagory completely and their auto-calibration is a type of tone control. I would never, nor do I critically listen to music on an HT system beyond concert DVD's which are explicitly mixed to be used in a HT setting vs. a critical listening 2ch set-up.

H9

[Deleted User]

Anybody remember Fletcher-Munsen?

Erik Tracy

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

Anybody remember Fletcher-Munsen?

Had to google it but when it came back with "Equal Loudness Contours" - yup...

heiney9

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

Anybody remember Fletcher-Munsen?

Yep, but I've found with my current gear that even at low level, the resolution is excellent. Even my inexpensive single ended tube integrated's sound wonderful at low levels. But. not all gear does.

H9

cnh

Hmmm. I'm going to have to think about that. Because most gear I've heard loses something at low volumes unless you're close enough and you have sound-proofing in your room. Either that or my hearing is just gone, gone, gone.

I don't doubt that some gear may be good at any volume but those are not the majority in my, admittedly, more limited experience.

cnh

steveinaz

Yamaha used to use varible loudness on their pre's, pretty cool for the time. You set your volume control to near max listening position, then used the outer loudness "ring" to control volume. I though it was pretty innovative (c-60/c-80; c-65/c-85 pres). It slowly reduced the loudness effect as volume naturally increased.

[Deleted User]

It's not anything to do with what level audio gear you have, or the listening room. It's a characteristic of human hearing, if you gave yourself a hearing test and lowered the test volumes you'd find that at lower levels we humans are less sensitive to bass and to a lesser degree higher frequencies. Face it, the flatness of our own personal frequency response curves depends upon how loud the incoming sound is.
The loudness compensation contours were designed to compensate for this fact. At lower volume settings the bass and treble were boosted to give the listener an even frequency response (a little more bass is needed than treble). The problem is when this contour is used at all playing volumes, boosting beyond an even response giving too much bass and treble boost.
Granted the tuned circuits that create these boosts and cuts often caused more time related problems than the "cure" solved, but nevertheless it is a real consideration.
Cheers, Ken

heiney9

I agree Ken with the theory of the phenomenon but why is it with my current gear I hear more at lower levels than I did with my previous gear? All other things being equal. That's where my gear comment came in. Perhaps the phenomenon is still there just to a much lesser degree.

H9

cnh

steveinaz wrote: »

Yamaha used to use varible loudness on their pre's, pretty cool for the time. You set your volume control to near max listening position, then used the outer loudness "ring" to control volume. I though it was pretty innovative (c-60/c-80; c-65/c-85 pres). It slowly reduced the loudness effect as volume naturally increased.

I have a Yamaha integrated with that feature and it's nice to have for that unit especially as I use it a lot for low level background music when I write. It is interesting how it applies less and less correction as you increase the variable loudness control knob. An interesting idea...but certainly at normal listening levels the control is off. I, agree, Ken sums it up nicely and that is what I exactly what I hear.

cnh

George Grand

It addresses a human deficiency. Quality gear has nothing to do with it.

Yamaha had an interesting approach to loudness compensation.

mhardy6647

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

Anybody remember Fletcher-Munsen?

Fletcher and Munson, yes. Interestingly their work has been somewhat refuted over the years. Not the basic premise, but some of the methods and quantitative conclusions. As I recall, later work reduced the relative impact on high frequencies at low levels.

There is, of course, frequency dependent bias in perception of loudness. Interestingly, I've found vacuum tube amplifiers and high sensitivity speakers display subjectively less need for loudness compensation (heh, I'd argue "no need") at low levels. Nope, cannot explain it.. it's pretty evident, e.g., on pop music with a recorded fade out.

Yamaha's variable loudness (which was actually quite common in 1950s hifi - e.g., the EICO HF-52 mono integrated, to give one example) was indeed a good idea. Yamaha's curves resembled Fletcher and Munson's.

I'm sticking with the "more harm than good" opinion, though.

I actually do use the Yamaha CA-610II's variable loudness sometimes in the family room, when that hifi is being used strictly for 'background'.

inspiredsports

No controls in circuit, except perhaps balance.

Knucklehead

Ok...I have a question...

On my Allied 395 I have the following:

Bass & treble controls
Loudness
Low filter
High filter

Do these controls "ruin" the listening experience?

inspiredsports

Knucklehead wrote: »

Ok...I have a question...

On my Allied 395 I have the following:

Bass & treble controls
Loudness
Low filter
High filter

Do these controls "ruin" the listening experience?

I don't know that particular amp (integrated?), but I know that most audiophile mods of vintage gear involve completely removing these circuits and plugging the holes on the faceplate or substituting a new faceplate where the holes are not present.

Various Dynaco PAS preamp mods are classic examples with which I am familiar where these circuits are neutered, and the sound quality improvement is tangible.

[Deleted User]

I had this effect pretty clearly demonstrated to me last week. I've been doing frequency response measurements in my new listening room. I have a RS SPL meter that I've modified to have a flat frequency response down nice and low. I started off with the meter at the 60dB setting and calibrated 1kHz at 0dB. Then I went down in frequency to 20Hz in multiple steps noting what the SPL meter indicated. When I got to below 64Hz it sounded to me like the playing level was dropping, but the meter remained fairly steady. The sound was being produced, but it sounded like it was reduced to me.
I went to 70dB levels and repeated the process, now the meters showed the exact same response and now it sounded much less like the volume was dropping. At a higher playing volume (10dB increase) the apparent volume level more nearly matched what the meter was showing. I suppose it wasn't important for humans to have super sensitivity to low frequencies as we evolved. We needed our best hearing for quiet sounds in the middle range and upper frequency.
I've always suspected that some audio systems might have a built in Fletcher-Munsen correction effect by simply revealing a rich harmonic overtone structure which our ear/brain uses to "fill-in" the reduced lower frequencies.
Cheers, Ken

Conradicles

Good stuff Ken!

Knucklehead

inspiredsports wrote: »

I don't know that particular amp (integrated?), but I know that most audiophile mods of vintage gear involve completely removing these circuits and plugging the holes on the faceplate or substituting a new faceplate where the holes are not present.

Various Dynaco PAS preamp mods are classic examples with which I am familiar where these circuits are neutered, and the sound quality improvement is tangible.

Yes, its just a late 60's solid state receiver, my level of knowledge would not work with the amount of work that would need to be done, I guess ill enjoy what I have...for now. Thanks for the info.

David

mhardy6647

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

... I suppose it wasn't important for humans to have super sensitivity to low frequencies as we evolved. We needed our best hearing for quiet sounds in the middle range and upper frequency.
I've always suspected that some audio systems might have a built in Fletcher-Munsen correction effect by simply revealing a rich harmonic overtone structure which our ear/brain uses to "fill-in" the reduced lower frequencies.
Cheers, Ken

That's an interesting point; have you read Daniel Levitin's book This is Your Brain on Music? There is an interesting psychoacoustic phenomenon related to harmonic series. If you are played a chord that is missing its fundamental, your brain (auditory processing) will re-insert the fundamental - you'll "think" that it is there. It doesn't work if the series isn't of harmonics (e.g., 100, 200, 300, 400 Hz). Levitin makes the point (as I recall) that at least certain animals have been demonstrated in the laboratory to do this as well.

Levitin's website:
http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/


EDIT: Oh, and as for the Allied (Pioneer) 395; if you like what the tone and loudness controls do for you; by all means, use 'em! Much of what's being proffered in this thread is opinion; I believe I disclaimed my first post as such (although, admittedly, only after editing a rather more pointed response).

Tour2ma

Knucklehead wrote: »

Ok...I have a question...

On my Allied 395 I have the following:

Bass & treble controls
Loudness
Low filter
High filter

Do these controls "ruin" the listening experience?

If you adjust them so that the music sounds better to you, then by definition they can't be ruining anything.

I always thought the coolest thing about loudness compensation circuitry was how its impact rolled off with increasing volume levels... even in my lowly starter Heathkit AA-15.

I suspect that those who feel the level of their gear have allowed them to not miss loudness compensation are listening at higher, minimum spl's than they would were it available to employ.

RuSsMaN

Loudness contouring is for night listening, higher impact, without the volume. It became a crutch for punchy sound, and those not running the typical 'V' through an equalizer. The 'more is better' crowd, regardless of how it REALLY sounds.

Loudness never rolled off in your Heath Bruce, you just probably started to clip it, softly.

At the end of the day, loudness, tone controls, eq - may all be viewed as 'compensating for deficiencies', but if it blows your audio skirt up, who cares? Rock it, and enjoy the music.

Cheers,
Russ

Fongolio

RuSsMaN wrote: »

Loudness contouring is for night listening, higher impact, without the volume. At the end of the day, loudness, tone controls, eq - may all be viewed as 'compensating for deficiencies', but if it blows your audio skirt up, who cares? Rock it, and enjoy the music.

Cheers,
Russ

I use the loudness control at low volume and I use an ADC Soundshaper 3 Paraequalizer and I love it. Totally enhances MY musical experience and I don't really care if I'm compensating for deficiancies or not an audio "purist". Sounds great to me and anyone who hears my rig.

The SDA effect totally messes with the "pure" music signal and most here will agree that SDA's sound great. So who cares? If it sounds good to you than it's good. Period.

[Deleted User]

To your point, Mark, pipe organ builders knew about the ability of hearing a fundamental frequency if the overtones are played properly. Instead of the expense of making a 64' pipe they would put two 32' pipes side-by-side. When the organist would play the low C on the foot pedal both of the 32' pipes would play and everyone would "hear" the lower note.
In audio gear most woofers produce fairly high amounts of second order distortion called "doubling". If the signal is 32Hz, for example, the woofer produces 32Hz plus some 64Hz mixed with it. I believe most moderately experienced listeners find higher levels of doubling to sound more pleasing, "richer" bass. Only after being exposed to low distortion bass do listeners begin appreciating the difference.
Cheers, Ken