I wonder if it's tricky to get it to sound right due to the frequency range in question and the problem of exciting room modes?
I wonder if our perception of the loudness effect varies as much from one individual to the next as does our hearing response vs frequency (i.e. quite a lot)?
Yes, and that's one more reason why it is good to make the amount of compensation controllable.
Actually when you look at the amount of compensation required according to different sets of equal loudness contours, you find that it has changed quite a lot over the years, even though these are averages over large numbers of people. See Equal-loudness contour - Wikipedia for the details.
Actually when you look at the amount of compensation required according to different sets of equal loudness contours, you find that it has changed quite a lot over the years, even though these are averages over large numbers of people. See Equal-loudness contour - Wikipedia for the details.
Most certainly changes from one individual to the next.
I have noticed that my hearing changes sometimes, especially if I have a cold or allergies. No doubt about it.
I recently heard about a new set of headphones on the market that compensates for your hearing. It actually measures your hearing and compensates with a DSP. A guy bought a set and tested them, then he gave them to his 18 year old son. The compensation for his son was way different than it was for him. The headphones boosted the high frequencies a whole lot more for him.
In the 1990's I made a preamplifier that has an unfiltered signal that passes through two mechanically coupled volume potmeters and a bass boosted signal that passes through a separate potmeter to set the amount of compensation and through only one of the two volume potmeters. I always had the impression it undercompensated, but then again, it was based on older equal loudness contours that require less correction than ISO 226:2003.
I converted the input signal voltage into an unfiltered and a bass boosted signal current. The first potmeters were used as current dividers rather than voltage dividers. That is, the signal went in through the wipers and came out through the end contacts. The second volume pot was connected more conventionally as a voltage divider. This way I could connect all these potmeters and a balance potmeter together without any buffers in between and (in theory) without any unintended interactions between the settings.
I converted the input signal voltage into an unfiltered and a bass boosted signal current. The first potmeters were used as current dividers rather than voltage dividers. That is, the signal went in through the wipers and came out through the end contacts. The second volume pot was connected more conventionally as a voltage divider. This way I could connect all these potmeters and a balance potmeter together without any buffers in between and (in theory) without any unintended interactions between the settings.
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The biggest problem as I see it is variability in mastering.
I am running a respectable sub with LPF and gain adjustments.
Over my quite vast collection of albums, tracks and genres I find that there is great variability in the level of the lower bass.
Once the system is setup correctly for any particular track or album I find that loudness compensation is a relative non issue...ie it sounds correct at pretty much any level and loudness compensation actually degrades the realism of the sound.
So, IMHO more useful than loudness compensation (fixed or variable) is bottom end eq in the manner of typical active subs.
I have never found Yamaha variable loudness circuit to sound any good....dynamics and clarity get crushed.
Just sayin'.
Dan.
I am running a respectable sub with LPF and gain adjustments.
Over my quite vast collection of albums, tracks and genres I find that there is great variability in the level of the lower bass.
Once the system is setup correctly for any particular track or album I find that loudness compensation is a relative non issue...ie it sounds correct at pretty much any level and loudness compensation actually degrades the realism of the sound.
So, IMHO more useful than loudness compensation (fixed or variable) is bottom end eq in the manner of typical active subs.
I have never found Yamaha variable loudness circuit to sound any good....dynamics and clarity get crushed.
Just sayin'.
Dan.
With my current setup, I've spent many hours learning, measuring, positioning etc, to get the room response as smooth as possible. ( I've mostly stuck with driver correction above the Schroeder frequency, and room correction below.) Then there's been many more hours arriving at a subjective "listening curve" overlay, which has settled in at about -0.5 dB/oct from 32 Hz to 16 KHz.
One of the happy discoveries I've made is that this is a setup that now sounds wonderful no matter what I listen to. I almost never feel that familiar old nag to get up and tweak something that's not right, because with very few exceptions, it just is. For me, achieving this smooth in-room magnitude frequency/power response has produced the most dramatic improvement by far of anything I've tried down through the years.
I think this may also be a part of the reason I haven't felt it necessary to revisit the loudness compensation thing. Although another part of that may be that I tend to listen at about the same SPL from one session to the next these days, since I live in an apartment (ReplayGain has undoubtedly helped with this), and the listening curve I'm using probably has a form of loudness comp baked in, since I set this by ear.
One of the happy discoveries I've made is that this is a setup that now sounds wonderful no matter what I listen to. I almost never feel that familiar old nag to get up and tweak something that's not right, because with very few exceptions, it just is. For me, achieving this smooth in-room magnitude frequency/power response has produced the most dramatic improvement by far of anything I've tried down through the years.
I think this may also be a part of the reason I haven't felt it necessary to revisit the loudness compensation thing. Although another part of that may be that I tend to listen at about the same SPL from one session to the next these days, since I live in an apartment (ReplayGain has undoubtedly helped with this), and the listening curve I'm using probably has a form of loudness comp baked in, since I set this by ear.
Yes, loudness behaviour of volume controls was very common in German radios and electroacoustic equipment from the 1950ies on. The volume potentiometers had up to two taps which were connected to RC networks. The goal was to compensate for the results that Harvey Fletcher and Wilden A. Munson reported in a 1933 paper. Later on, the manufacturers decided to make this functionality selectable by a »Loudness« or »Contour« switch.
Besyt regards!
Besyt regards!
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