I miss my Loudness Button and Tone Controls....


So I recently upgraded my system to a Rogue Audio Sphinx integrated amplifier, V2.

Prior to this purchase I was using a NAD C162 preamp, and an Emotive UA-200 amplifier.

After a month of listening, I have to say, I miss the tone controls and the loudness feature on the old NAD pre-amp, especially when listening at lower volumes. The Rogue amp sounds great when played at a minimum of 50% of its output, but at lower volumes, it just seems flat. I do use a sub (SVS SB-2000 pro, and I'm using a very efficient speaker (Zu Audio DW's).

I've toyed with the idea of buying an EQ of some sort that has a bypass so that I can boost some of the frequencies when listening at lower volumes, and then bypass when I listening at higher volumes.

Any thoughts on this? Anyone experience anything similar? I'm about to pack and sell the Rogue amp, as the cons outweigh the pros for me.

 

 

barkeyzee1

I love having a loudness switch and tone control as well. But if it just the loudness switch that need to add to your system then I would recommend looking for Micro Ifi Tube buffer II which has a Xbass loudness switch that you can adjust from 0 to 6dB and 12dB and there's a 3D Holographic enhancer for your speakers. You can also adjust the tube buffer from 0 to 9dB as well.  This Ifi Tube buffer work well for me and you can research on Ifi's website before making your decision.

"Theological" audiophile dogma which are false or off the mark when taking by itself alone:

-

-An amplifier with tone control or loudness control cannot be a high end product or be a qualitatively very good design..

--You dont need room control or treatment if you are in near listening position ( the speed of sound contradict this because the waves cross my room 13 times during one second and my brain/ears use the reflected waves and not only the direct waves in the fraction of second they need to CREATE sound impression)

-- Cables dont make a difference even a small one...( they did in general but a small one )

-- Acoustic treatment is enough, acoustic mechanical control, will add nothing more ( sorry but Helmholtz will not accept this one)

-- Ionization devices and Schumann generators are snake oil even at low cost ( I experimented with them sorry and they are very evident reason why some people dont perceive their action at all)

-- Speakers cannot own the same intimacy impression quality than headphones ( sorry but it is false if we can use well acoustical simple facts)

-- ALL "tweaks" are useless ( so wrong i will not comment)

-- we can measure everything....(It is false because the ears brain only mesure everything that matter for us in sound perception not the other very specialized tools by themselves alone and it is even trivial and common place to say so )

-- all that matter is our subjective impression ( that is no more false than the last dogma above saying that we can measure everything that matter)

--Unlike the RCA dog logo we listen to the system/room not to the system only...

 

The most important audio fact for our journey perhaps is how to learn to CORRELATE precisely measured and located phenomena and devices with our own subjective perceiving apparatus IN OUR ROOM...

 

 

There is many others false dogmas help me to find them... 😁😊

 

 

The sansui au7700 is a amp 1975 i had the au417 that was mine first amp. That was 1977 with AR speakers and a dual turntable. I never used the loudness button.

Sorry but if you like loudness you dont know how to listen. The same is with magnepan why people put a subwoofer behind it is so wrong. The problem is not the maggies but the amps. And the low from the Maggie is so naturel but people wants a boom box. So that's why i hate loudness also.

First i dont need to use the loudness button of my Sansui because of my acoustic control of  gear and room...In fact even if they can be useful i forget to use them because of the very quality of my system/room at all level...

Second i dont like generalization that are evidently wrong: loudness is useful at VERY LOW volume listening for some people in particular in MOST ordinary non dedicated room... I dont use them but i tested them...The usefulness of this button is dependant of the very low level of decibel used and asked for ...

Many people anyway listen music at high level then they dont neeed this button before reaching premature deafness .... 😁😊

By the way , I am pretty sure that i had learn already how to listen if i was able to tune my own room even creating a " mechanical equalizer" myself in the last 2 years of my listening experiments in acoustic...

And also it is impossible to tune a room by listening experiment and using the loudness button at the same time, then i never use it during the tuning process...

But this fact dont make the loudness button a device for acoustically unrefined ears only.... it is useful at very low level listening... This is an EVIDENT fact....

Then buy a mirror before judging device or other people around your own navel ...

The sansui au7700 is a amp 1975 i had the au417 that was mine first amp. That was 1977 with AR speakers and a dual turntable. I never used the loudness button.

Sorry but if you like loudness you dont know how to listen

I forgot to say that i enjoy TWO listening positions in my room which neither of one i can choose over the other one so good the two are...I listened half the time in each position equally...

3 feet from the speakers and 8 feet from the speakers in my square 13 feet room...

The loudness button may be useful ONLY at very low level in my near listening position...

They are not useful for me in my 8 feet location because the decibel level is put higher in this position and the room acoustic give me all necessary bass and highs impact clearly already...

 

By the way it is another false dogma that a room must be tuned and can be tuned ONLY for one listening position... I enjoy and tune my room for two....With more headphone intimate details effect in near listening but more lively natural sound in the distant position but keeping enough intimacy to beat all my headphones though or rival them...

In the two postions the soundscape encompas me and is "almost" spherically around me because in some recording i am betwen the periphery and the center of the soundscape...Is it not good for a stereo system? When some claim wrongly that the sound can only and must be ONLY between the speakers plane and cannot encompass the listener...

 

 

Acoustic method is the audio miraculous wonder over the gear itself....