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?
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Loudness ?
27 replies
I have wondered this also.
Don't know what it does in a technical sense, but on my BM 5000 & 8000 it just makes things sound LOUDER!
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.
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.
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