What is the purpose of LOUDNESS?

Does it not just turn the volume up? or bass, treble ? what if you have lab 5's do you need it then?

I have wondered this also.

britops:

What is the purpose of LOUDNESS?

Does it not just turn the volume up? or bass, treble ? what if you have lab 5's do you need it then?

Loudness emphasis the bass, treble at low  volume levels.

As a general rule, never use LOUDNESS, it distorts the sound. However - its function as used by B&O makes sense. From their explanation:

 The loudness function is used to compensate for the human ear's lack of sensitivity to high and low frequencies when you are playing at low volume levels. It "boosts" the low and high frequencies so that the music appears more dynamic.

 Some people seem to like what LOUDNESS does, and leave it on regardless. This leads to exaggerated bass and treble and a weakened resolution of the midrange. 

I used to use loudness with my 6000s but not since I upgraded to 8000s. 

To me, I think it may help with certain speakers but defintly not needed with the 8000s, also found this the case with the 5000s.

Spoils the sound at higher volumes imo, turn bass and treble down and increase the volume!
 

I've turned to OFF

I actually have the bass turned DOWN on my BS7000 and loudness off, as my B&Ws tend to push out a bit too much bass...

I generally try and avoid tone controls though.

mobeyone:

I used to use loudness with my 6000s but not since I upgraded to 8000s. 

I'm in exactly the same case, I don't use it anymore since I got the 8000s.

I know the purists will take issue with the fact that i play with my tone controls. 99.9% of my music is played at minimal volume to moderate volume. I adjust the tone to what suits me due to room dimensions, carpeting, etc. I just don't see where distortion comes in when played at volumes in the low and mid range. This is where i'm a huge advocate of the subs. I'm using the 2 X 15 inch powered subs and usually have the bass turned down on the BS9000...and thus driving the other speakers with less frequency. The end result may not be for a purist, but it sounds good to me.

Ultimately, the important thing is that it sounds good to you. I honestly don't believe the distortion introduced by the tone controls is a huge issue. Almost all recordings are EQd in one way or another in the studio, and often with nothing more complex than the 3-way tone controls built into most mixing desks.

I use loudness on my BM 8000 and Beovox Penta setup, simply because my existing living room is 12ft x 12ft. I also use the loudness facility on my Beosystem 5000 and CX50 and Cona that is in my 12ft x 11ft bedroom. I cannot really push either setup in terms of volume, as I live in a mid-terraced house, so use the loudness facility to give more depth to music where I could otherwise set the tone controls to neutral and pump up the volume.

mecca:

The end result may not be for a purist, but it sounds good to me.

And that's what matters. Listening is an extremely subjective thing, and it's what's good for you that matters.

Loudness does distort quite a bit though, as your sound profile turns into a hammock, with the midrange slouching.

I use the tone controls when I feel that the room I listen in is too soft or hard, and I need compensation. But in my main listening room, I have worked a bit to get the room to be as acoustically right as possible (while it still looks like a normal room) - then I can have the player be neutral.

Dear All:

I remember growing up and there was an electronics guy in our town. His project was takiing a 10 band EQ and using each EQ band with an amp. ie.... the boost or cut of each EQ lever was controlling 1 amp...he was sizing the amps accordingly.....and each band of the EQ was attached to 1 speaker for that Freq. on each side L and R........ I'm not sure if he ever finished it...but that sounded interesting...for sure...what an interesting way to define HiFi...no??

This is a tough one. My BL 4000's really sounds alot bigger and richer - more true to life, with the loudness on and the bass and treble tweaked up a bit. They really aren't all that impressive with the bass and treble set to 0. Doesn't ABL and loudness adapt when when the volume is pumped up anyway?? 

 

My question is, should i turn on loudns and turn down the bs & trbl, or leave the loudns off and turn the bs & trble up a bit?? It's a bit annoying if ya have to go through all the menus to turn the loudns on and off when turning it up and down, thats why i assume it's adaptive, and works in harmony with the ABL of the speakers. 

David:

This is a tough one. My BL 4000's really sounds alot bigger and richer - more true to life, with the loudness on and the bass and treble tweaked up a bit. They really aren't all that impressive with the bass and treble set to 0. Doesn't ABL and loudness adapt when when the volume is pumped up anyway??

Do you have a lot of soft fabrics, curtains and cloth in the listening room?

At any rate, we should use the setting we're most comfortable with. 

I just got a "new" Beomaster 6500 in the door. When I hooked it up and played, it was as if the sound was coming through from inside a barrel. Got worried, thinking something was wrong with it, but checked the sound settings. LOUDNESS was on, and the BASS and TREBLE had been pushed up. Once I had those back to neutral, it turned out the amplifier was in excellent condition and not in a barrel at all.

 

A good loudness control is used to boost both low and high frequencies at low volumes to compensate for the way the human ear works. It helps present the sound in a similar way to that which the person would hear if the music was played at the intended volume of the recording. A good loudness control varies with volume - look at the service manual of the Beolab 5000 amplifier for an example of this.

Whether you use it or not is up to you though most B&O active speakers do have a degree of bass boost built in at lower volumes! I am convinced the BS2 does as well! 

It depends on the recording to me. I mainly turn it off on the BM6000 and boost the bass/treble instead. Everything played sounds good on bass 1-2 and treble -1,5. Flat sounds thin. The BM still needs a good service.

The volume is in the low maks 15. It seams to ad alot of bass and the sound gets muddy.

With my Beovision LX5500 the loudness is nearly always on and bass/treble flat. I do have some Metallica bootleg for instance still on VHS and those needs sound adjustments.

Again the sound is better with bass up rather than the loudness.

As said numerous times, it's all a matter of choice. Where people make mistakes is judging loudness as an improvement too quickly without actually listening properly to the difference in sound. Play something with almost any acoustic instruments, and you will generally find that loudness just 'closes-in' the midrange frequencies, which could be considered the most important in many ways as they carry the greatest amount of information about the timbre and character of most instruments.

Some people may prefer it like that though. I personally like open sounding midrange, it really helps with the sound-stage.

I use loudness on the lower volumes and in my opinion it sounds better and I don't care what "audiophiles" say. On higher volumes I prefer to turn it off because it makes the bass a bit boomy and the high tones a bit sharp.

Clearly, there should be a LOUDNESS function on B&O phones then. Sure, the voices we listen to might not be quite as recognisable, but they would sound better!

Beobird:

I use loudness on the lower volumes and in my opinion it sounds better and I don't care what "audiophiles" say. On higher volumes I prefer to turn it off because it makes the bass a bit boomy and the high tones a bit sharp.

A decent Loudness control should switch off at higher volumes. Which system do you have? 

Graphical display of a good loudness circuit, as enjoyed by Soundproof!

Peter:

Beobird:

I use loudness on the lower volumes and in my opinion it sounds better and I don't care what "audiophiles" say. On higher volumes I prefer to turn it off because it makes the bass a bit boomy and the high tones a bit sharp.

A decent Loudness control should switch off at higher volumes. Which system do you have? 

 I've got a BC9500, but it's actually the room acoustics that makes the bass a bit boomy at higher volumes