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

A high end receiver i mean the top level receivers. A receiver is never high end mine fault.

I miss them too at times on a pretty high end system. One of the reasons I tried and continue to use Roon is that it has built in digital EQ- a very powerful one in fact. Among the many things it can do is it allows you to set pre set EQ curves you can toggle on and off- just like a Loudness button, or a Treble tilt, in addition, you can of course test and dial in various pretty niched tweaks to the response curve to adjust for room peaks/valley's or listening tastes.

I rarely listen at volumes low enough to want/need ’loudness’, but when I do, properly implemented eq keeps the music INVOLVING, without it, just low background sounds.

It seems to me that so many of you do not listen at low volume and have no idea of the need for and benefit of properly engaged fletcher-munson adjustments,

which are TRULY advantageous, in ANY SYSTEM. ANY SPEAKERS, ANY SPACE.

I subscribe to the old "if it sounds good it is good" approach. Otherwise, what's the point of pursuing this often wild and crazy hobby?  :)

Oh, one other suggestion, although it's more costly than the Loki, is the DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0. Dual Core, with a host of features, including room correction.