What happened to the loudness control?

When properly implemented a loudness contour is a wonderful thing. It's well established that the human ear becomes less sensitive to both low and high frequency sounds as the volume level is reduced. A properly design loudness contour will counteract this effect and restore the intended tonal balance when listening at low sound levels. In analog equipment a loudness control should not be a fixed EQ button, but instead a variable EQ knob that applies different EQ at different volume levels. Only a few manufacturers ever did it right. In the digital domain, Tact preamps/room correction devices allow for multiple user defined loudness curves. I believe Meridian's digital speakers have a similar feature.

I wonder if all those who berate tone controls, EQ and loudness compensation always listen at high volumes because their systems only sound "right" at high volumes. Improper tonal balance due to low listening levels is a compromised sound.

I agree with Onhwy61.

However, proper implementation of tone controls and loudness contour controls would have an extremely bad effect on our declining hobby. Sales of cables, IC,s, etc ect etc would fall like a stone. IMHO, many folks are using cables/IC's, etc, as tone controls of some sort. Actually, its worst that that, because a lot of equipment is bought/sold for nothing more than tonal reasons which could be corrected by a versile TC or loudness compensation control. If you think I'm FOS, pay close attention to the questions asked by folks here (as well as the responses) and see how many questions arrise out of a search for true neutrallity. Most are "how do I get more bass", "How do I get rid of boomy bass", "How do I get rid of the brightness/glare", etc, all of which could be handled by properly designed and implemented frequency bending devices.

One of the reasons for not including such in high end equipment that I have always loved was "that the controls would be mis-used by the end user", even though this same end user was discriminatory enuf to buy that piece of high end stuff and could obviously hear its merits, never-the-less he would be an acoustic ignoramus and use the TC's distructively.

Humm.....just food for thought. By the way, I keep a seperate tone control (with low,med, and high frequency adjustments as well as high and low filters in my tape loop. I use it to compensate for some problems with old LP's and CD's. Don't have to use it often, but when I do its well worth it!

Why would we want such devices that are based on empirical, repeatable, scientificaly demonstrable processes, when we can use cables that provide a far less consistent, but much more expensive solution.
Are loudness controls filters - yup. So is your room, your furnishings, your cables and everything else your system consists of.
Do they affect the sound - sure, as they're supposed to to enhance those frequencies that the ear cannot distingush as well at low volumes.
The gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands that we would affect the signal, yet our ears can't effectively hear that multi-thousand $ signal as it's being reproduced at lower volumes in a non-filtered set-up. But we wouldn't be audiophiles if we screwed with that signal right?
Go figure.

I had one once, but she does listen with me anymore.

It would be nice if someone manufacture a high quality, stand alone "loudness" control (with Fletcher-Munson curves) that could be inserted in tape-loop for listening at low volumes & removed from circuit when not needed. Know of manufacturer who does this?