Loudness - Why has the industry stopped producing amplifiers with this feature any longer?


I listen to music at all times of the day and night (solid sleep eludes me the older I get).  My favorite times are when the family is gone and I can select the listening level, mostly moderate to higher volumes.  But the simply fact is I find myself listen at lower levels much more often then my preferred listening mode.

Piggybacking on a discussion regarding low level listening here on Audiogon, I'm posing the question:  Why has the majority of industry stopped producing amplifiers with this feature any longer?

I look forward to your input
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Showing 2 responses by mijostyn

Atmasphere, you aren't kidding. All the unused switches in my dad's old HH Scott preamp failed. Not worth fixing. However, in the digital world having such things as room control, bass management, dynamic loudness correction and the ability to juggle your system's frequency response all by computer (no mechanical switches) are real eye openers.
All this can be done without adding any distortion and the DSPs doing it are all operating under a 48 bit system so you can lose a few bits here and there w/o affecting the sound. It is a tweaker's dream come true and a lot of fun. If you get the opportunity you should play around with a dedicated room control processor like the Trinnov ST2 which inserts between your preamp and amplifiers. On bypass it may not sound quite as good as the system without it but engage the room control and you are in a whole new world.