I recently started using the loudness button again and it revives my music!!

I listen at low volume often late at night. That is why I bought an Accuphase integrated amp. High end sound with a loudness button.

@FOH3663

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045 It's independent of speaker quality, it's a pyscho-acoustic effect.

@jonathanbailey2021

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045 I find this not to be the case.

@jonathanbailey2021

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045I have expensive speakers (Proac) and use that loudness button at low levels.

@FOH3663

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045 Agreed

Great explanation, also why it's not often found anymore on equipment. Many audiophiles would claim: "My setup does not need loudness", which shows they do not understand audio and are snobby at the same time, always cracks me up. What I would like to add is WHY your hearing works this way. This is because at low levels your hearing is trained to focus on mid-range so make sure you are still able to communicate language, which is usually in mid range (except "The Nanny" with her high pitch LOL). Much like when the light fades, you tend to only see monochromatic, only shades and no color. So this is by design and the loudness button helps you mitigate this when you decide to play audio at low volume. Love it!

@wendychan6679

Жыл бұрын

I will be buying a new amp and one of the features I will be looking for is the loudness control. For me, I feel it puts 'body' into the sound which I like. Paul exolained the situatio very well.

Oh! That answers A LOT of questions. Now, I understand why ‘loudness’ controls were so popular back in the days (which I used frequently). I now wish that they stayed.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

On proper amplifiers you still have loudness - modern implementations are dynamic - just don't buy puristic high-end crap for a lot of money

@ArturdeSousaRocha

Жыл бұрын

I have a loudness switch on my self-powered bookshelf speakers. Does help a little, although the best way is just to turn them up quite loud.

@BrianSu

Жыл бұрын

modern amps still have treble and bass knobs, just have to adjust them individually.

@bikdav

Жыл бұрын

@@BrianSu Not a lot of the hard core audiophile ones.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

@@BrianSu yeah it's surely the funny to applie the curves manually with bass and the treble and adjust it every time the volume changes

Great explanation Paul! The 'Loudness' control/button is one of the reasons I purchased a Luxman integrated amp. My old Denon PMA-757 in my other system has a loudness button as well. They're great features.

@ryanray6215

Жыл бұрын

Audio fools definitely don't agree with you . Haha :-)

@KenTeel

Жыл бұрын

I agree. I'm sure that the purists wouldn't like someone else determining their EQ at low volume. They'd like to do that themselves. However, for an average listener, being able to press a button and get instant "fullness" of sound, well that works just fine and is more convenient than messin' with EQ knobs.

@phonebackup8132

Жыл бұрын

Most loudness buttons only boost 100hz 6 db. Most older McIntosh preamps and receivers had a adjustable control that followed the Fletcher Munson curves exactly. Some others did so as well, for example the Heathkit ap 1800 did as well.

Luxman integrateds have a loudness feature and they still sound fantastic especially when my family goes to sleep and I still want to extend my me time🍸😍

Mom and Dad still have that Harry Belafonte LP.. love that thing.

👍Yamaha did well with varible loudness contour at the time I was marketing hi-fi, late 70's to mid 1980's. No matter what or how explained, most customers sided with having tonal feature options versus a clear path, no added contols idea of lesser noise or potential distortion. They understood the purity concept, just didn't want to be locked out of features. Lower volume background levels matter more to those who don't dedicate as much % of time to critcal listening and higher output. That rich, full sound absent by loss of perception doesn't have to be a cost of late or early hours listening enjoyment when others are sleeping unless one chooses a no frills pre-amp.

@grumpy9478

Жыл бұрын

(as you know) some of those Yamahas (like the CR-2040 I still use) had a presence (mid-range) control along w/ bass & treble, including adjustable cf for each control (+ hi / low cut-off filters). quite useful (& fun!) for "non-listening room" systems. of course, the unit's design, engineering & parts must be of excellent quality, or else you have a crap-injection mode for the signal path. I find even a simple loudness function to be useful for listening at very low levels when drifting off to sleep, wherein I still wish to perceive the full freq range of the material.

I do a lot of low-level listening. One of my best purchases was a Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated amp. From the remote, bass, treble and sub-woofer levels can all be adjusted independently, the sub output can be toggled off and on (useful when positioning) and the remote has a "flat button" to return all settings to flat, when listening at higher levels. Those features greatly enhanced my enjoyment of my system.

@nicksnowbuildings

Жыл бұрын

what's the sound of the amp like?

@markwagner1997

Жыл бұрын

@@nicksnowbuildingsI was reluctant at first, about investing in Class D. But, after reading and viewing so many great reviews, I took a chance. I've had class A/AB separates for years and I wasn't disappointed by the Class D amp, at all. Mid and upper midrange is more accurate and well defined on the Parasound... contributing to excellent imaging. Actually, bass is better defined, more realistic, less boomy than the previous system too. The New Classic 200 is also available as a preamp, in case you already have an amp you really like. I still have a couple A/AB amps sitting around.. a Parasound and a Rotel rb-1070. I've toyed with the idea of comparing them using the pre-outs, but I'm so happy with the integrated, I haven't gone to the trouble of dragging everything out of my custom cabinet to try them. I replaced Emotiva seperates...FYI. The integrated appears to be a bit hard to find these days, as it was when I bought mine in early 2021. The preamp version is not so scarce. I was told component shortages were the culprit.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

A good device would apply the curve automatically and volume dependent - in that case when listening at higher levels it would automatically stop apply the correction - with a few hundred dollars you are on board

What a funny response. It's like he just skimmed over the question and gave a standard go-to response. He specifically said he doesn't have this issue with any of his other speakers so it's not the electronics. He was asking what it could be about this specific speaker design that would cause this issue. Like maybe it's a sealed enclosure. Or maybe it has heavy rubber surrounds on the drivers. Or maybe the cones are a very light material, etc....

@kineahora8736

2 күн бұрын

Good point-he mentioned it was *only* on 1 set of speakers indicating it could not have been Fletcher-Munson. I imagine driver tech might be at play-they just don’t move enough at low volumes at certain frequencies-too stiff. I wonder if super sensitive horns and such maybe suffer less from this…

Yamaha Control Amps (Preamp) probably had the best adjustable Loudness Control back in the day. Most people did NOT know how to use it correctly

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

YPAO Volume these days does it automatically

@ryanray6215

Жыл бұрын

Luxman is great too , also MacIntosh , Parasound and others .

@leolleiten4910

Жыл бұрын

Correct, I had the c-80 preamp,with m-80, you could control a wide range of frequencies for each bass mid and treble, plus adjustable loudness, that combo was a monster, I regret selling it 😢 On the other hand, it does depend on speakers, in my opinion, speakers that need a lot of power are more firm on mechanical parts, and maybe have lots of “filters” ( crossover parts) and won’t move a lot of air if that makes sense. A cheap pair of elacs 6.2 with an 90’s high power Yamaha, at low volumes in my bedroom, without loudness control, sounds amazing.

@larrywe3320

Жыл бұрын

@@leolleiten4910 Yeah... the C-80 and C-85 had *parametric* tone controls

Loudness is nice when it’s late and I’m not trying to be obnoxious and still get the sound stage and tones that should be there

Opposite for me. I do 'serious' listening at lower levels! I find my hearing is more sensitive to the subtleties at lower volume. Also agree with others that have said bring back the loudness button.

@Andrew-rc3vh

2 ай бұрын

I think it went out of fashion along with tone controls because any kind of filtering is imperfect, as per ripples in the passband and phase distortion.

@pawlowski6132

Ай бұрын

Stupid.

@pawlowski6132

Ай бұрын

It's on your head. You're wrong.

Paul's usual good answer to a good question but I couldn't help chuckling a bit when noticing that within reach of his hand was a sprout which has a 'Loudness' function. To be fair I think Sprout was Scott's creation and Paul may have forgotten.

@alanwigodner5811

Жыл бұрын

I believe that this control is not actually a loudness contour function. I believe it boosts the bass.

It’s a huge bummer that loudness control is frowned upon by the audiophile community because there is a very real reason why you need it whenever you don’t play at concert level. But especially audiophiles always play music at concert level…no, absolutely not! The lack of loudness control can make your US$100,000 system sound like crap when played at low volume compared to a reasonable US$1000 retro system that got this feature. Our hearing performs hugely different on tonal balance at different volume levels, and if you want to actually maximally ENJOY music at low volume without making it sound like some narrow-band tiny system, you need loudness control, but some mad hatter purist marketing got the industry fooled to think loudness control with an off switch is impossible to do well in audiophile gear. Paul, your great engineers can make this right.

@ThinkingBetter

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045 No that’s plain wrong. Check the ISO 226:2003 curves. The effect is gradual even into loud volumes. The volume level at a concert for a live concert recording is concert level and studio level during mixing, EQ, mastering is often also on the loud side at around 90dB. The idea that you just need to play loud (and annoy your family or yourself) is not a solution. And the notion that a loudness compensation function that has an off switch will always damage the audio quality is plain ignorant.

@bergennorway

Жыл бұрын

@@streettails8045 How deteriorated do you think the sound will get by digital correction of frequencies? It seems that you think room correction should not be used too, like all kinds of DSP. For «normal people» room correction like Dirac is more affordable than to build a room around the speakers and stereo equipment they use. We are not using analog detoriating parametric equalizers anymore, those belong to the 70’s and 80’s.

@uhfch2358

Жыл бұрын

Street Tails - To believe that a loudness function with on/off function deteriorates the sound is just nonsense. When off, the loudness function can be set up to completely bypass that circuit. So, why eliminate a feature that can enhance sound at low levels, as needed?

@ThinkingBetter

Жыл бұрын

@@bergennorway Yes, especially if you run a DSP in the digital signal path, it’s rather easy to loudness compensate the signal and of course turning off the compensation just means your audio data passes the algorithm involved completely unharmed. But also analog loudness compensation can easily be bypassed without any harmful effect by a simple switch.

@andrewfurst5711

Жыл бұрын

"Purists" ruin a lot of things, whether it's audio, automobiles, politics, or virtually anything. And a problem is that the "purists" are so strongly driven that they dominate the output, even though they are a tiny minority of the people taking an interest. Take autos, for instance. Most people want a car that takes them from here to there reliably, comfortably, safely, and with some style. But the purists that dominate the industry want scaled down race-cars that can take tight turns at high speed, they hate the convenience of digital speedometers (even when the car also has an analog speedometer dial), they hate cars with liftbacks and comfortable rides, etc. They are obsessed with tight tolerance "fit and finish" that most customers don't care about. Of course along came Tesla that gave customers big digital displays, convenient lift-backs, nice rides, and a lack of obsession on fit and finish - and customers flocked to them. Now the others grudgingly imitate the Tesla features. But they'd love to go back to making cars that they like personally, rather than cars that the customer actually wants. In audio, there's more of a perception than a reality that a loudness control - and tone controls in general - are only for "cheap" systems. The audio purists only want to listen at full volume, so they won't make concessions to low volume listeners. Of course they would lose sales to competitors who offered loudness controls, but they've done a good job at keeping high end audio "pure" (and less useful) by eschewing tone controls and virtually enforcing this across the board. And I don't think I need to point out how "purists" have ruined politics, and not just in the two major US parties but in every political party. It's just another example of how the most highly driven minority will dominate something at the expense of the vast majority.

Good explanation. I like what Yamaha and a few others did back in the 80's & 90's. In addition to a variable loudness control for listening at low volumes and the proverbial tone controls (some even had the rare midrange knob!), they added a 'Direct' switch that bypassed all the tone & loundness circuitry when you wanted the purest sound quality from your equipment. Sometimes it was called different things....'Pure Direct', 'CD Direct', etc. but they all had the same idea. In my experience this was an excellent solution and depending on the model usually very effective. I'd like to see these features make a comeback.

@michaellee6654

Жыл бұрын

yamaha curves were not quite fletcher munson but it served its purpose well. they did it correct but most users did not understand how to use it.

@BTom16

Жыл бұрын

I love my Yamaha C-85. Just recapped it. I expect to keep it forever.

@Steve_Blue_Oyster_Cult

Жыл бұрын

Yamaha still has the variable loudness control as well as a pure direct switch. My Yamaha AS-501has it.

I used to have a great car stereo where you could set low and high level listening in EQ and decide when it would start to change over to the next, and that was probably close to 20 years ago. Music sounded exactly the same no matter what volume you had.

@PSA78

Жыл бұрын

@@pascalpoznan9632 Kenwood, a top of the line unit. Kenwood and JVC is still the only brands I use in my cars for headunits, after talking to one that both sold and repaired all brands for many years.

@f430ferrari5

Жыл бұрын

Music sounded the same no what the volume…. Crappy. 😂🤣

The Yes Album!! Ahead of its time. Brilliantly recorded and still sounds great today. Not keen on their later stuff though.

@vanpgeluid

Жыл бұрын

Good seen in the rack

The RME ADI-2 FS is advertised as a DAC, but it's essentially a pre-amp and headphone amp with a built in DAC. And it's got a loudness control, bass and treble controls, and even a built in equalizer if you want to tweak to that level. The newer versions put the tone control features on the remote control. It's not a super high end product, but it's not low end either. I'd like to see more pre-amp designers follow this path, including access via remote control.

One of my favorite features in my Monolith HTP-1 is its control over the Fletcher-Munson curves. You get to choose between their original "vintage" curves and the newer ISO 226:2003 standard. You can also set the amount of enhancement in dB. It does a great job of keeping the speakers sounding the same as the volume decreases. Most home theater receivers offer a similar, though less flexible, approach via either Audyssey Dynamic EQ or Dolby Volume.

@mthomas653

Жыл бұрын

My Marantz SR-5012 AVR has this feature. It seems to work very well.

Thank you for the explanation Paul. My integrated amp has bass and treble knobs and a tone control button to let you set tones off of flat to your liking and then invoke or uninvite the setting via the remote.

I once owned a Yamaha receiver which had a constantly variable loudness control combined with the rotary volume knob. It sounded wonderful.

If the stereo lacks a loudness button, I don't want it. Most of my music listening is at a lower volume setting. There are some of us who prefer less loud music as we go into our senior years. Loud boom-boom-boom base is a nuisance after 5-10 seconds of it. The sad part of rich diversity seems to be a good part of the noise problem.

Audyssy has a glorified 'loudness' knob in their software they call "dynamic EQ" that I think accomplishes the same thing as the loudness button, but is dynamically variable with the volume setting, and then flattens out at 0dB. Although, you can adjust how steep the curve is with the max volume 'offset' setting. The Denon and Marrantz receivers sport this feature.

If you're mixing music, at low volume, be aware of this curve. You might add too much bass or too much treble if you're mixing at low volume, only. Do your mix, then test it at a higher volume. Paul, thanks ! Great explanation. (PS: Do your mixes at a relatively low volume, or you won't have any ears left if you do it at high volume. Take care of your hearing. You can crank it up AFTER you do your mix, to test it and make adjustments.)

Thanks! My theater system allows each of the 11 speakers to be individually calibrated for that effect with it disapeering at reference.

I remember some classic model McIntosh preamps and integrated amps that had the variable loudness control. It allowed you to vary the bass and treble boost as needed for any volume instead of a pre-programmed boost that would actually ruin the sound at higher volumes.

My Marantz keeps the bass levels higher at low volumes and it makes a big difference in enjoyment to me. Makes perfect sense what you are saying. You have to run the calibration to access that function.

Wow, this really explains what I notice with my new speakers too. I rectified it by adding more speakers! So now have a set of bookshelf speakers running at the same time as a pair of floor standing speakers and a subwoofer.

A "mid" tone control knob works wonderful as a variable loudness control when you use it in subtraction. I love it on my Marantz pm8006. Too bad it's pretty uncommon to find.

THANK YOU! During the years I sold audio gear, I would demo it with the sound a bit high and would explain to customers that all gear (even boomboxes) sounded alike at whisper level, maintaining that higher volumes brought out the differences. I confess I did NOT then know about the Fletcher Munson curve even though I mistakenly considered myself knowledgeable. I certainly would have used this information in those days and will now use it when I demo my home systems for others!

What a great answer to something I have wondered about for decades and all of my different stereos.

In my Yamaha receiver this is called Ypao volume. It's essential for lower level listening to sound decent.

The space I have for my setup is extremely limited so I have no choice but to keep the volume at a lower level. Fortunately, my vintage receivers and old ADS L 710 speakers deliver all the qualities I need even in a far from ideal space. The loudness control is a great thing to have.

Nice explanation! Thank you Paul.

Loudness controls tended to be poorly executed. That's why I bought a Schiit Lokius which allows you to EQ in a subtle way from deep bass to high frequencies. I run it through the tape loop on the amp so I can switch it on and off using amp remote. Also great for rolling off treble on harsh recordings or bass boost on tinny ones.

@ThinkingBetter

Жыл бұрын

Yes, we need loudness compensation done with audiophile engineering efforts in future products.

@Mikexception

Жыл бұрын

Confusing matter. It all mostly depends on room size and speakers reproduction futures Whenever in past I changed something in speakers I was adjusting to them curve of loudness. When I made at last widerange and very sensitive speakers I found that original circuitry was correctly designed for them because as I remember such speakers were used then in 1963.

My 1990 Technics has a Super Bass button that works great for low volumes

Brilliant, so informative. Thank you Paul .

I think fully bypassable loudness control and eq is a must, and missing from our rigs for far far too many years. Schiit has some great EQ's for any system, but a loudness control is harder to come by. I've considered a Rotel A11 Tribute as a pre-amp since it has all the above, and it's also a great little integrated

@anonimushbosh

Жыл бұрын

Can't see the point in EQs unless they're digital. If you're adding one to a system you may as well benefit from the ability to switch between preset flavours.

@christophergaus3996

Жыл бұрын

@@anonimushbosh I've been looking at Mini DSPs for that exact reason 😎

My Crown SL-2 preamp has a variable loudness switch. I love it.

I always wondered what the "Loudness" setting on my Sony AVR was intended for - thank you so much for explaining!

Spend a lot for equipment that lacks worthwhile features like loudness compensation and tone controls. Makes sense. Some manufacturers are adding this feature again like Yamaha but I have an SMSL AMP that is very inexpensive and sounds good at all volume levels.

It makes ZERO sense you guys don’t add Loudness control. You can make it in a way that can be fully turned off for Audiophile fanatics, but this is a simple yet HUGE feature in making things sound great at low volumes. Most Japanese integrated amps and receivers have them and make them sound better at low volumes than products 10X the price that don’t have such feature.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

​@Taco what do you gain with your puristic crap when it only works at concert volumes?

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

​@Taco and what did you not understand in "can be fully turned off" - with a bypass there is NOTHING in the circuit

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

@Taco what exactly do you not understand in the word bypass? Hell outside your high-end bubble you have tone control defeat options where you even can hear the physical switch

@jwglista

Жыл бұрын

I would suspect that the loudness control is more popular in Japan due to many more people living in apartments there where their neighbors wouldn’t appreciate late night blasting of stereos.

@Evil_Peter

Жыл бұрын

@@Harald_Reindl The Fletcher Munson research does in no way suggest that it sounds best at concert levels. You seem to be misinformed on the subject, unless you were intentionally misleading to try to make your opinion sound better.

I worked for years to get a great sounding low spl system, but even more years prior to that making a monster system that held up at extreme volumes. Now I greatly appreciate the amazing imaging and detail that systems designed for lower spl can produce, especially in my small to medium room environment. And I wish I had done this sooner. Put your egos to bed and save your ears my friends. It'll pay off big time down the road.

The Bright switch on a Fender Twin Reverb does the exact same thing as a loudness control. It's actually really hard to get the volume on that amp low, but the Bright switch would sweeten up the top and bottom end at low volumes to compensate.

@Barry101er

Жыл бұрын

Interesting, I never thought of it as that !! Thanks

I had a Dynaudio X18 speakers paired with a Parasound 200 Preamp and NAD 214 amplifier. It sounded great on moderate to loud levels but not so much on low volumes. Then I had an itch to replace my old amp. I replaced my Parasound/NAD combo with Exposure 2510 integrated amplifier. My X18 speakers sounded so much better with the Exposure amp, and to my surprise, my old speakers sounded great even at low volume. Black is just blacker and I could hear so much more details at low volume. My neighbors are happier! Sometimes, it is really just the equipment.

@MrIgor2k

Жыл бұрын

Buy yourself better speakers, like horns with high sensitivity , add a valve amplifier and you are done.

@dbronx347

Жыл бұрын

@@MrIgor2k You must have misunderstood me. I'm good now after changing the amp.

Never thought of the loudness control those terms (!) Great comments below-lots of gear to look up. Super video.

Amplifiers with auto class-A in some of the first handful of Watts may also be right in the switching or transition phase at a certain volume which may or may not be audible. So that's also a thing to consider. It may be possible to adjust with idle current potentiometers. -So it is crucial that the idle current is adjusted or checked from time to time.

You know you have a great system when the sound is very full even at very low volumes

@ewoutbuhler5217

Жыл бұрын

yes, then you have automatic loudness, congratulations!

while not disputing your good explanation which confirms what I had already read before, I did notice a change when changing monoblocs. My old Sonic Frontier tube monoblocs (quite powerful for tubes) did not bring the same level of details at low level, particularly on the deep bass, than my Bryston monoblocs. I did wonder if it was due to the technology or if maybe some of the Sonic Frontiers components started to need a makeover (not the tubes which have been replaced every 10 years or so)

How about an adjustable Loudness control?

loudness switch... bring it back again. and never take away my tone controls. Eq for life. my ears know better.

Thx Paul! I love your channel, absolutely great explanations! Thx so much!

Great explanation Paul!!!! IN my opinion, I think it was one of the worst ideas that new gear does not have a Loudness Control. It was one of the best ideas to come along in Audio.

😊Paul, Wow! You never fail to impress me with your knowledge of the physics (mechanics, electronic and acoustic) plus the human factor (physiological and psychological). You reveal things that I have just come to accept as limitations of the hardware and my 'wetware' . For me, 'understanding the 'why' enhances my listening experience. It allows me to make adjustments to my meager system that may make a perceived difference whether or not my system is capable of translating the tweaks into a perceived 'improvement , whether or not my ears and brain are capable of hearing a difference. Thank you!

Excellent presentation with useful info...as usual. Thank you sooooo much.

Paul mentioned the loudness switch of the older amps and receivers. If you have a decent subwoofer in the system, you can compensate for the loss of bass at low levels. The first generation of Bang & Olufsen Beomaster 1400 receivers automatically compensated as you slide the volume control to softer levels. They also had more effective tone controls...bass +/- 17dB and treble +/-14 dB. That made a huge difference on low listening levels. What I found, the B&O stuff made listening at low levels a pleasure that you find almost nowhere else.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

No a subwoofer can't compensate on it's own - fletcher munson applies to specific frequencies depending on the volume and don't care which chassis playing whatever frequency

Variable loudness control, that's you contour pot-meter. The argument "we don't do loudness because you should crank up the volume is crap. Some of the most enjoyable time with HiFi is during late night low volume listening.

I love this Guy...his answers are always delivered with high quality level smoothness...laughing along with how he's gonna lay it down...Bob Ross. LoL

In the 80's, one system I'd play Telarc's 1812 on CD... I established playback setting notes on a few of my demo war horses. Obviously the cannons have this massive level of clean deep energy. The master level has to be way low to accommodate the bursts without launching my modded Cerwin-Vega woofers across the room! Such low playback means I really need the loudness contouring... which places even higher demands on both amp and speaker. Ultimately, to handle the cannon fire with the boosted LF, I had to listen so quietly... but DAMN that's a spectacular demo track! Yeah, it's a +15min commitment... but the build up is sensational. I've got multiple versions, there's better overall recordings... but those Telarc cannons impress. I have a sound effects Telarc release with the cannon fire unaccompanied also. Now I've got all the LF capability needed for any playback... including the Telarc cannons. For subs, our primary media system has four 18"s and four 15"s, supporting big full-range mains. But in the mid 80's my vented Cerwin-Vegas would (scarily) unload below tune, sending pulses of LF all the way to the listening position!

Fascinating stuff. Our perception of sound is all in our mind, so it makes sense it is optimized for survival. I believe some systems can be better at being engaging at low levels. When my system is at its best, I am quite happy listening quietly. I use very old alnico drivers in the speakers. One explanation of why some people enjoy the sound of alnico based drivers is their ability to play pleasingly at low levels. No idea if that is true, but it seems consistent with what I perceive.

My system has air motion transformers that crossover at 500 Hz, and the speed and athleticism of those drivers makes them surprisingly listenable at low volume.

@ewoutbuhler5217

Жыл бұрын

excellent, that makes them non-linear at low levels. Smart design, built-in loudness.

Paul writing letters to himself again.

I had this problem and I was shure it is because of amplyfier, but it was a problem of low dynamic and resolution of my sources and bad cheap cables. When I set up a good DAC I was amazed how my system began to play at low volume. No problem, like at high. Changing cables made situation else better.

I own a Marantz integrated amp and even without using the bass and treble controls it sounds pretty good at low levels. It depends on the speakers as well, but I tuned my system to sound good at low levels with high quality smaller speakers ( von Schweikert Unifield 1) and a NOS DAC. Those very crisp modern sounding systems that reveal every detail on higher levels tend to drop at lower levels more in my opinion. I'd rather have a bit warmer sounding system that is still pleasant to listen to at a background volume level. Makes my wife happy as well.

Late versions of Yamaha receivers (RX A and on) have a computerized loudness setting that you can set on or off at your preference. Cheers.

IMO Loudness is only part of the equation. As someone who only listens at lower volumes, the amp is critical and many just don’t sound good unless they get a bit of juice.

My budget Sony receiver has "pure direct" which I suppose could be used in the opposite way. Boost my bass and treble tones at low volume and then click the direct tone when the volume is up. Great video thanks

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

My Yamaha AVR just applies loudness depending on the volume and its called "YPAO Volume" - "pure direct" is nonsense because it also bypasses room-eq and I yet have to hear a room without issues no matter how much absorbers you ijstakl6

Nice to see a Yes album in the collection .

Along with loudness controls, another factor is the speaker itself. I personally like higher efficiency speakers with foam or cloth surrounds. These surrounds have less dampening ability compared to rubber. Some “rubber” surrounds feel plastics and overdamped. I try to avoid these due to sound sometimes feeling lifeless. Some rubber surrounds can be quite good such as on the Faital Pro 3FE22 full ranges. An overdamped speaker will have a flatter frequency response compared to a lesser damped cone, but the tradeoff is musicality. For a point of reference, Klipsch Forte speakers have a sound signature I like.

Cant eyeroll enough when a hifi enthusiast talks about "serious listening"

thanks for this Video, i think it also depends on the quallity and dimension of the chassis in the speaker, the mechanical losses are important. I own ARA loudspeaker from SB Acoustics and they provide all details and great sound also by very low volume.

@ewoutbuhler5217

Жыл бұрын

I guess, you missed the point then, It's not speaker quality, but your hearing. It's not a defect but the way your hearing is designed. It's non-linear on purpose. Of you hear as much bass and treble at low listening volume, it's either an automatic function of your amp you missed or your drivers are not as linear as you think...But who cares, when it works for you, it works...

I have a pair of B&W 702 S2 which are now set up in a small room, my office, and the speakers are against the wall. But because these are big speakers in a small room they sound great at low volumes and even in nearfield the have a great center image. Voices are like a hologram in the middle. A was surprised that the sound could be so good defying all the speaker set up recommandations.

I think that years ago we did have separate bass and treble controls on our pre-amplifiers and integrated amplifiers and so we could compensate for the deterioration in low and high frequency sound, they are no longer available.

You can always tweak the treble and bass control ...OR reduce the mid range control .. or get a graphic 1/3octave equalizer

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

Yeah tweak it manually, I prefer automatic dynamic solutions and won't buy crap which don't support such basic features

@beamer.electronics

Жыл бұрын

I listen to vinyl, my amp doesn't have a loudness control and I make my own RIAA preamps, with a switch on it - I just bend the curve slightly, no additional circuitry in the path needed. However, it might not suit somebody elses' ears though - sound is subjective.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

@@beamer.electronics sound is always subjective - but that you hear lower freqencies and high frequenices less at lower levels than other frequencies is a fact and that's the whole point of loudness - linearize the full range frequency curve so that it sounds identical no matter the total volume - besides your neigbours it's healthy and prevents you from early hearing loss when you don't need to turn up ther volume all day long for quality

@beamer.electronics

Жыл бұрын

@@Harald_Reindl Thank you for your thoughts. At 70, my ears are already dysfunctional - I adjust RIAA tone for frequency L/R and together imbalances and Tinnitus. I think the linearisation ship has long sailed. I mainly enjoy music at low volume now - hence the tone bending. "To enter old age you need to be brave!" :)

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

@@beamer.electronics anyways, loundess correction is the base every human shares and on top of that you may adjust for your hearing - the root problem is also shared by you as by everyone else and is strictly volume depenendet - without a correction at that point it's hard to compensate your hearing loss which is likely volume independent - when you didn't have an A/B comparison you have no idea how much it improces the general result

I often wonder if this was the reason for creating of the early equalizer, the 'Program Equalizer' better known as the 'Pultec EQ' . frequency selectable boosting of lows and hi's, it has studio/broadcast loudness control written all over it...!

@borisgrigull7772

Жыл бұрын

@Douglas Blake Maybe some , for the home user yes. However the Program eq was designed to improve the poorer quality recordings for a oncoming demand for a growing market at the time specifically for Radio broadcast.

I get the impression that the demise of the loudness button had more to do with people perceiving it to be a crutch for a weak system. Once that perception got established it became a bit of audiophile snobbery to leave it off. I think a Loudness feature with a variable loudness depending on the volume should be part of every system, I don't care how good it is. If I want to listen a lower volumes with the F/M curve attenuated nicely by a well implemented loudness button that should be my choice. And when well implemented it can make low volume listening much more pleasant. And sure, higher volumes sound better when doing serious listening but I might want to do some serious listening when higher volumes are not an option. No need to relegate lower volume listening to background music. Let the user decide, not the device.

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

The word audiophile became many years ago an insult hardly to top

I run 3 sets of speakers on the same amp...not to blow the picture frames off the walls...but to have full sound at low volume. And yes, all 3 speakers are identical and the amp has a+b+c. Not sure if it eliminates any curve but I enjoy full sound at low volume because it's six 12 inch woofers, six tweeters, etc.

@navinadv

Жыл бұрын

With so many tweeters don’t you get polar interference (a kinda phasey sound)?

@Harald_Reindl

Жыл бұрын

A ton of woofers bring a ton of phase shifting but can't work around the underlying psychoacoustic

The " loudness" button was used to boost bass/treble for definition not flat response in audio. Sparkle and bump.. Button ..lol

@FOH3663

Жыл бұрын

Subjectively flat ... without it at low levels it's subjectively anemic.

My old Adcom preamp has a Contour button just for this, although I rarely use it as my speakers sound just fine at any level.

Used to have a Yamaha with a variable loudness. Cop out not putting them on amps as far as I'm concerned. Had a defeat to remove it from the path too

This is a great explanation! Thanks.

Great explanation! One question though, to experience the music in the manner it was mastered should the reply levels be the same. And is there an industry standard for audio mastering levels?

When my lab mates and I at HP were tweeking Hafler amps in the late 70s and 80s I learned about the Fletcher curve. I just moved my preamp closer to my listening position. I do believe there are some issues in the speakers that can effect the quality of sound at low volumes that Paul can talk about.

Thats why Bang & Olufsen systems sound exceptionally good at low volume. E.g. the Beomaster 3000 and 3000-2 have loudness as well as bass boost & cut of 17dB and treble boost & cut of 14 dB. My 3000-2 is now 50+ years old and I still use it as my phono stage(modified with pre-out) to feed a Sonic Frontiers pre and Valve Audio "Black Widow" hybrid tube power amp on 2 ESS AMT 1D's and 2 REL subs.

I have a pair of active Dynaudios and they sound good from very low volumes luckily.

Yes, the ear does hear things differently at different levels, but having listened to many speakers over the decades, I've found some do actually sound better at low levels than others irrespective of whether a loudness button was used. So from experience, I think there are two factors going on, one in the ear and one in the loudspeakers.

@d.j.wiendels6572

Жыл бұрын

I agree,, in my experience transmissionline speakers have a more flat response on a low level

Hi Paul. Always appreciate the explanation. I think part of the question was why is this effect more pronounced on 1 pair of speakers and not another. Could it be because they are harder to drive and where their crossover rolls off the bass to mids to highs?

@Fastvoice

Жыл бұрын

Nope. The more linear the speakers the more you'll here this effect. If some "HiFi" speakers have built in loudness to sound subjectively "better" (which means less linear, more low and high end) they may compensate the hearing curve at low levels but sound terrible at higher volumes.

@Renrondog

Жыл бұрын

@@Fastvoice klipsch curve comes to mind

@Fastvoice

Жыл бұрын

@@Renrondog I only know the speaker manufacturer Klipsch, not the curve. Is it also some kid of equal-loudness contour like the Fletcher-Munson curves mentioned in the video?

Outstanding. Thanks.

original question stated that it wasn’t his front end, as his other speakers didn’t exhibit the same effect.

Lots of decent front end streamers have some dsp equaliser functionality which can be used for 'loudness'. Im using an auralic g1 front end, and the dsp options are good for this...

I just moved from a house into a co-op so there's really no listening at realistic volumes any more. I may have to put my Yamaha A-S700 back in service to have their variable loudness control to set the volume. I just have to remember to NOT press the pure direct button to bypass the balance, tone and loudness circuits while the loudness control is set way down. I've done that before and was lucky I didn't wreck my speakers.

A lot of people who enjoy music, audiophiles or not, use auto equalisation to have a better listening experience. There are good sounding solutions for little money.

Now days no loudness button and manufacturers (some) charge a fortune and are to cheap to at least give us tone controls! At least on integrated amps there’s no Bass, Mid and Treble and that’s probably why I don’t buy a new integrated. Heck even pre amps are starting the flat or nothing!

I use music for "background" a lot and I use the loudness button when i do.. personally I value that control for these times and would not have a system without it unless I had a dynamic prosessor or eq in the loop to activate during these times. I just dont enjoy the background music sound flat. Can't always turn it up to where i want it to be for total volume so it helps a lot to be able to tweak it a bit.

Thanks Sir for the info

Sucker for the equal loudness thing - Fletcher/Munson curve is real and I wish audio makers kept the loudness knob on their amps or pres or somewhere in the chain.

Great channel! 🙌🏻 Dali spektor 1 vs Jamo s803. Which do you recommend for a small room?

I really enjoy listening on low volumes.

That is really interesting to know!