[stevehertz]

Most hi-fi amps in the 70s used to have a loudness control. The purpose of this control was to boost the bass and treble frequencies when listening to your system at lower volumes, thus restoring appreciation of those frequencies in the face of our ears 'turning the volume down' on them at lower listening levels. This loudness control was usually fitted as well as normal bass and treble controls. For some strange reason, hi-fi buffs and reviewers thought that these were totally unnecessary, frequently said so, and the control was eventually dropped from amps. My own take on the control would have been to design it with a degree of 'inbuilt intelligence' to operate thus; the control would be set to provide an agreeable amount of low and high frequency boost (if at all) to suit the listener at a certain listening volume. Here's the complicated bit.. any further adjustment of the amp's volume control would automatically change the amount of effect of the loudness control accordingly. ie reduce it's effect at higher volumes and increase it lower volumes, thus, to some extent, matching the non-linearity of our ears.

The fact is our ears are not linear, so the humble loudness control, designed and used properly did have a place in hi-fi amps in my eyes (ears?). The problem with the UK hi-fi market is that fashion and most of the journals embraced the idea that amplification should be 'straight wire' technology. All very well, but this takes no account of our ears, listening preferences and dreadful speaker responses. In short, high quality tone controls - including a well designed and deployed loudness control - have a part to play in a high quality sound system.