What does the loudness button on old hifi amps actually?

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WarmJetGuitar

New member
As the title says I wonder excactly is going on with the loudness button. Compression, added lows and highs? Asking as I love the character this function adds on amps from Sansui and Bang & Olufssen and thinking that it'd make sense to ask a mastering engineer to do something similar though more subtle to some of the recordings of my bands and stuff I record for people.
One thing I noticed is that it makes everything louder but doesn't seem to make it hissier. Anyone could help me out here?
 
10 years or so ago I asked the same question about the 'expand' button on some boom boxes.

I got over it because it was just a out of phase delay effect.

The 'loudness' thing is exactly as you described. Nothing more than a eq to boost lows and highs to compensate for lower volumes.

Get that right in your mix and forget about it. If the mix is done, then a good ME should be able to hear that and make necessary adjustments.

It would really suck if your recording already sounded good, then you hit the Loudness button and shit got ridiculously heavy in the low end and sounded like crap.

Keep in mind what it is you are listening on and the room you are listening in. Does your mix sound good when you add the 'Loudness' button? Just like others that you like with that option selected? Then you have done it well.

Don't add the effect before the switch is pressed. :)
 
The loudness button's function was to compensate for the human ear's uneven response to frequencies at low listening levels by giving a boost to low and high frequencies.

You turned the button off at normal listening levels.
 
gecko zzed said:
The loudness button's function was to compensate for the human ear's uneven response to frequencies at low listening levels by giving a boost to low and high frequencies.

You turned the button off at normal listening levels.
Click to expand...

Actually not really. We kept the 'loudness' button pressed because we liked how it sounded in my experience as a kid. :)

That was a result of having crappy stereo equipment tho. :)

But therein is my point. If a mix sounds good to the OP when he adds the 'loudness' effect, then all is good. Trying to make that happen without the effect would just be overkill and ruin the coolness of what it is meant to do.
 
jimmys69 said:
Actually not really. We kept the 'loudness' button pressed because we liked how it sounded in my experience as a kid. :)
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As it happened, I did exactly the same!

Turning it off was what you were supposed to do, but I never did.

But now it is never on.
 
I always though it was more for the Phono stage of the receiver, as the volume seems a little lower with vinyl.
 
j.harv said:
I always though it was more for the Phono stage of the receiver, as the volume seems a little lower with vinyl.
Click to expand...

Naw man, Black Sabbath had to have the loudness button engaged in order to feel the pure evil! LOL!

Seriously, even most car stereos up until 6 or maybe 10 years ago had the same 'loudness' feature. Now they just do it automatically.
 
Depending on the manufacturer, loudness functions on a curve that tapers off as the volume gets louder. This is achieved by level/voltage sensing of the pre-amp's output to gradually reduce the bass and treble boost as the volume increases. All of this in order to comply with the Fletcher Munsen loudness curve that related to the human ear's sensitivities.

Many manufacturers didn't bother with the full bore loudness compensation function and just offered a static bass and treble boost, or in many cases as well, simply a small bass boost.

There was no industry wide accepted method of implementation most likely because there was no licensing fees to be paid to anyone for employing it and offering up simpler designs on it saved manufacturers money.

Cheers! :)
 
My NAD has the tapered loudness control.
I haven't used it much though.
I try to use the thing at a decent room filling volume.
It has been my understanding that the loudness switch actually compensates for the inefficiencies in the speaker that present in its inability to reproduce certain frequencies at low volume.
In terms of ON/OFF ness it's a bit like playing a Dolby recorded tape in a non Dolby player. This most often happened in the car but the extra beef actually helped deal with car noise so it wasn't a problem. In other circumstances - like when wanted to listen - it could be annoying.
 
rayc said:
It has been my understanding that the loudness switch actually compensates for the inefficiencies in the speaker that present in its inability to reproduce certain frequencies at low volume.
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Nope, it's for compensating for the non-linear response of human hearing.

Some Yamaha receivers had a loudness knob. You would start with the loudness knob all the way up, set the volume for what was your "normal loud" level, then you would dial back the loudness control which would lower the volume and compensate for our hearing's non-linear response.
 
It is to compensate for for differences in how we hear at different volume levels, or the so-called Fletcher-Munson effect. It's designed to bring the bass and highs up at lower listening levels, but as mentioned in practice we kept in on all the time in the 70's. If you monitor with the switch engaged while mixing or mastering your mixes will sound awesome to you through that system, but sound like crap... dull and lifeless in other systems. It has no place in the studio. It's for consumer hi-fi systems.
 
Beck said:
If you monitor with the switch engaged while mixing or mastering your mixes will sound awesome to you through that system, but sound like crap... dull and lifeless in other systems. It has no place in the studio. It's for consumer hi-fi systems.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Cheers! :)
 
What does the loudness button on old hifi amps actually?


Makes what your listening to sound like an 80s Japanese Metal band........

And yes it DOES not belong in a studio...it belongs on the HIFi that your rich buddy buys....
 
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ric3xrt said:
What does the loudness button on old hifi amps actually?


Makes what your listening to sound like an 80s Japanese Metal band........

And yes it DOES not belong in a studio...it belongs on the HIFi that your rich buddy buys....
Click to expand...
actually it doesn't exist on hi-end stereos ...... for that matter most of the expensive ones don't even have tone controls.
 
I have a Tone control defeat setting on a stereo amp: it's a very high end Yamaha from the 90's.
It is a particularly good sound. I THINK it was assumed that CDs were near perfect for a while.
 
The Loudness function was never sanctioned by true high fidelity devotees because it was flawed logic in so many ways.

First of all, for true fidelity we should be listening at the levels we would experience in the concert hall. Impossible? No, not then and certainly not now!

The max SPL at a typical concert seat rarely exceeds 90dB and even fairly "quiet" systems of the day, Quad ESLs could produce that with minimal distortion.

Then, since the correction is for "loudness" an acoustic parameter, there is no point in applying it in an amplifier unless you know the sensitivity of the speakers and can calibrate the system accordingly.

Electronic implementation was difficult and poor. You needed special, tapped potentiometers and it is hard enough to get stereo VOLUME pots to track!

All in all a gimmick that we are well shot of!

Dave.
 
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