Yamaha Loudness Knob
rskarvan
Posts: 2,374
I have an older Yamaha 2-channel receiver with a "loudness knob". Its the best feature I've experienced on a receiver. Basically, it turns-down the middle of the vocal range. So, I set the sound nice and full (moderately loud) and then when I want to turn down the music, I leave the master-volume alone and turn the "loudness knob" and the middle of the music quiets down. But, the highs and lows are still there - nice and strong.
Its a simple feature. And, its fabulous. Why don't all receivers offer this very useful feature?
Its a simple feature. And, its fabulous. Why don't all receivers offer this very useful feature?
Post edited by rskarvan on
Comments
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It is one of the few useful loudness compensation solutions, although it is based on the somewhat flawed Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curves.
Variable loudness such as Yamaha employed was used on a number of 1950s and 1960s hifi products, as well. Two that I can vouch for are the EICO HF-52 mono integrated amplifier (PP EL34 and nice output iron) and the Sherwood S-5500II stereo integrated amp (PP 7591).
These guys all have the variable loudness...
EDIT: FWIW, there were a few other 1970s amps or receivers that had variable loudness controls... not that I can remember any of them at the moment. We have a Kenwood KA-7100 that has a two position loudness control -- though I really don't have any idea why! The McIntosh C-28 has a 'loudness'/'presence' EQ switch on the front panel (come to think of it). -
At low volumes, human hearing becomes less sensitive to bass frequencies. The loudness feature compensates for our decreased sensitivity at low volumes, by boosting the bass frequencies up a couple of notch. I am not sure if the loudness button does anything to the trebble frequencies as well.
Yamaha used to have this loudness feature on almost all their receivers, integrated amps. But nowadays they must have phased out this feature on their newer receivers. -
Q: What do loudness buttons and skarvan have in common?
A: both suck
BDTI plan for the future. - F1Nut -
A 'properly implemented' Fletcher-Munson correction will boost HF and LF relative to MR. Some, especially lLater, "loudness contour" buttons only boosted LF. -
Would Jesus approve of your comment?
I think not.Q: What do loudness buttons and skarvan have in common?
A: both suck
BDT -
So how do you read this graph?
Does it indicate that our hearing is less sensitive to both bass and trebble frequencies?
And so the loudness feature boosts both bass and trebble frequencies?mhardy6647 wrote: »
A 'properly implemented' Fletcher-Munson correction will boost HF and LF relative to MR. Later "loudness contour" buttons typically only boosted LF. -
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche
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JC approves....he told me so.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
It's one thing to pray to god, everyone does it. It's called faith. But, aside from a VERY select few, it's quite something else when you think that god is speaking back to you. It's called schizophrenia.JC approves....he told me so.
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My Yamaha CA-610II has variable loudness knob. it's rad.PolkFest 2012, who's going>?
Vancouver, Canada Sept 30th, 2012 - Madonna concert :cheesygrin: -
So how do you read this graph?
Does it indicate that our hearing is less sensitive to both bass and trebble frequencies?
And so the loudness feature boosts both bass and trebble frequencies?
Yes and yes, respectively (i.e., you answered your own first question).
The Yamaha manuals explain it fairly well. See, e.g., page 20 of
http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/av/english/AFR/CR-2020.pdfMy Yamaha CA-610II has variable loudness knob. it's rad.
mmm-hmm... :-P
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So why did Yamaha get rid off this loudness feature in their newer receivers?
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So why did Yamaha get rid off this loudness feature in their newer receivers?
I don't think it was just Yamaha.. it was a feature on 70's and 80's stereo gear.
I don't think it's been on any gear since then that I know of.
Isn't it just a different name for a variable output level volume knob.. although they do different things? My Pioneer tuner has a output level volume knob that is used for when you connect it so an amp using the variable output RCA's.PolkFest 2012, who's going>?
Vancouver, Canada Sept 30th, 2012 - Madonna concert :cheesygrin: -
Mhardy... that is awfully pretty silver-faced Yamaha equipment you've got there. I especially like the analog tuner. Very nice.
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I'm one of the VERY select few. I'm bad. I'm nationwide.
As an aside, I said JC said so, not God.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Trinity... not just a character in the Matrix.
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"We have a Kenwood KA-7100 that has a two position loudness control -- though I really don't have any idea why!"
My Kenwood KR 9600 also has a 2 position loudness control. Loudness position 1 gives a 3 db boost and position 2 gives a 6 db boost.SDA SRS 2.3TL's
Silk Audio MS-90-BT integrated tube amp
Yaqin MS-20L integrated tube amp
SDA 2B TL's -
The variable loudness control and the loudness button are 2 completely different things.
I had a Nak receiver and a Yammy integrated that used the variable loudness compensation. It's just a novelty and I found I didn't use the feature. If you bypass the tone controls it bypasses the variable loudness as well. Since I always ran those units minus tone controls then no variable loudness. Those pieces have been moved along.
H9"Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not".--Nelson Pass Pass Labs XA25 | EE Avant Pre | EE Mini Max Supreme DAC | MIT Shotgun S1 | Pangea AC14SE MKII | Legend L600 | BlueSound Node 3 - Tubes add soul! -
As an aside, I said JC said so, not God.
I am not a christian, but from what I understand, JC is one of the 3 arms of god, so technically he was right, if you are heaing voices from JC, you are hearing voices from god, so the schizophrenia comment stands to reason.
I have a NAD c160 pre, and it has pretty useful tone controls, but I have found myself wanting more than that sometimes. I want to adjust the freq. range the tone controls effect, and this loudness feature would be great, so long as I could adjust it to not modify the HF in the same way it does the mid and lower frequencies. I find that the signal modification controls in many vintage recievers to be of a higher quality than what is included on some gear today. While the NAD controls are quality, they are only sometimes useful because of the non adjustable freq. that they effect. I generally only use the treble control, because modern music is mixed very hot, however it would be nice to have a bass control that I could match to the LF rolloff of my speakers, and a loudness feature for low volume listening.
I find it odd that the loudness control *lowers* the midrange relative to the two extremes. I remember loudness buttons and knobs on many old pieces of gear, and I remmeber what sounded like a boosted midrange. Maybe it is my foggy memory. I have not had a vintage receiver in a while, and my vintage poweramp doesn't have any controls. -
Well, look at it this way. Since at low volumes, human hearing is less sensitive to the bass and trebble frequencies, the loudness control compensates for this by boosting the bass and trebble controls. This also means relative to the boosted bass and trebble frequencies, the midrange effective gets boosted down a couple of notches.
I remember seeing some old high end preamps/integrated amps/receivers with a trebble, midrange, and bass tone control. But nowadays, it looks like that midrange tone control is no longer in fashion, all you have are the bass and trebble tone controls.
Another way you can play with tone controls, in this digital age, is to add a digital EQ. You pass the digital signal to the digital EQ, and you can adjust the music to whatever shape and form you like in the digital domain, without any quality loss. That's a really cool way of adjusting music to suit your listening needs. Behringer makes such a digital EQ, and some people have used it with great results.
Or if you use your computer as your music server (computer -> DAC -> preamp -> amp), then it's even easier, most music players have built in EQ's. I use Foobar. -
Tone controls are evil!"Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not".--Nelson Pass Pass Labs XA25 | EE Avant Pre | EE Mini Max Supreme DAC | MIT Shotgun S1 | Pangea AC14SE MKII | Legend L600 | BlueSound Node 3 - Tubes add soul!
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Tone controls are evil!
Yup, nowadays folks use interconnects and speaker cables as their tone controls. It only costs an order of magnitude more than the old-fashioned kind. -
I agree.Tone controls are evil!
Yes, but at least they aren't adding noise. Only shaping.mhardy6647 wrote: »Yup, nowadays folks use interconnects and speaker cables as their tone controls. It only costs an order of magnitude more than the old-fashioned kind.
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche -
Have you seen the price of boutique interconnects, speaker cables and powercords lately? They are more like 2 orders of magnitude more...:Dmhardy6647 wrote: »Yup, nowadays folks use interconnects and speaker cables as their tone controls. It only costs an order of magnitude more than the old-fashioned kind.
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for the record, I rarely use tone controls nor variable loudness... but, like armaments, it may be better to have 'em and not need 'em than to need 'em and not have 'em.
The Yamaha loudness contour is a relatively subtle and effective way to provide some compensation that is far more useful than a 'button'. I haven't felt a need to use any loudness compensation since I went to tube amps and efficient speakers (at any listening level).
That said, the resolutely solid state Yamaha CA-800 that's currently in the living room sounds very good dead flat at any level when used in its Class A mode. This past weekend, I will admit to using a bit of LF boost on my mass loaded TQWT speakers -- this is, I think, a more satisfying approach than adding a high-level "baffle step correction" filter to EQ the LF rolloff of the fullrange drivers in them (even though the latter approach is recommended by their designer). On an EICO HF-81, I am happy with them 'flat', though.
Tone controls are less evil than dogmatism, I think...
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My old Fisher tube amp has tone controls. It's pretty cool. You can turn either one of them up or down.2 Channel rig:
LSi9"s (modified xover's) & HSU Sub
Harman Kardon HK 990 Amp
Onkyo C-S5VL SACD
Music Hall MMF 5.1
Furman Elite 15
HT rig:
HK AVR-745 & Polk Monitor Series -
Nice looking setup mhardy6647! That reel to reel must be ancient!:D
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I am not a christian, but from what I understand, JC is one of the 3 arms of god, so technically he was right, if you are heaing voices from JC, you are hearing voices from god, so the schizophrenia comment stands to reason.
No-one gives a flip about your unlearned opinions on this topic. To say that one hearing from GOD has schizophrenia is out of line.
It stands to reason that you are mentally ill because people here constantly prove you are wrong and you never admit it and keep coming back with other BS replies. -
Which one? The TASCAM's from the late 1980s; the Pioneer is newer than Yamaha amp (ca. 1980).That reel to reel must be ancient!
They both have rather substantial EQ built into 'em, so that their response is flat (to keep this post on topic) :-)
Now, my normal living room amp... that's ancient (probably only a year or two newer than me)!
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JHC Yashu, my silly comments were in direct response to Furball's silly comments. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that you and he seem to be serious makes one wonder as to the state of your sense of humor.
Yours truly,
GoldmemberPolitical Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk
