Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Loudness - What is it for?

I don't think we know. I miss the button...

To the previous question about "I listen pretty loud, will it make a difference" the answer is probably "yes it will make a difference but you shouldn't use it".

The expensive implementation of loudness used extra potentiometers in the volume control to allow the amount of emphasis to vary with the volume control setting, ie it would have no effect at high volumes but more effect as you turn the volume down. Cheap implementations just pumped up the bass and treble whenever the button was pushed.

I liked the loudness button because it seemed to use different breakpoints from the tone controls, ie you could not duplicate the loudness effect with the bass and treble controls, and the loudness button did a better job of making things sound right at low volumes.

I think the real answer to the "why are there no loudness buttons on receivers" is that they put them all in DVD players ("night mode") instead so there weren't any left over for receiver production.