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

bluorion,

Yamaha integrated amplifiers have a little bit of a different approach to "loudness button". It is not even a button and it is variable. From what I understand, and that is very questionable, it does not boost some frequencies but lowers some others. You turn it up or down as you see fit, not just on/off, so it should be helpful with atmasphere’s concern.

The only problem is that I could never figure out how not to mess it up. In my experience, it is worthless. Your experience may be better, those engineers have not put it there for nothing.

EDIT: It seems that Yamaha amplifiers you may be considering (higher-priced) do not have loudness control. There is a loudness control on lower-priced ones (model 801, etc.), but you lose meters. So you are stuck with Luxman and, maybe, Accuphase. Which is not a bad spot to be stuck at, by the way.

glupson

"...a single volume amp designed and built by Pierre’s partner Ron Bowman. No volume control, no tone control."

That is how some of us used CD players with variable outputs. We did not need amplifier’s volume control.

>>>Sure, if it was a digital volume control, which it probably wasn’t. Goodie for you anyway.

glubson
The only problem is that I could never figure out how not to mess it up. 

>>>>No surprise here. 🤗

geoffkait,

">>Sure, if it was a digital volume control, which it probably wasn’t. Goodie for you anyway."

I have no idea what kind of volume control it was (mostly SONY CDP 790 and then a few ES models), but it was very usable when plugged into a no-volume-control devices. It even gave you remote control for volume.

Like Vermonster, I have sold the Yamaha variable loudness concept for years, and he explains it perfectly.  [They actually did make one stereo receiver model with VL on the remote (it had 2 motorized pots), as Jovian notes...this shoulda been the default design].  But I want to mention the approach taken by Crown Int'l with their IC-150 preamp.  Like most pushbutton loudness buttons, it grossly overcompensated, making it a glorified bass boost at all levels...BUT...in the manual they explained its proper use...with the VC set to 2PM (where its effect disappeared), the user was to lower the input gain controls on the amplifier (which theirs had) to set the inflection point where the ear heard full range...thus calibrating the loudness button properly, making it much more effective.  Also, McIntosh has a variable loudness knob on their C-20 classic tube preamp...and it's the best one I've found, with a well judged contour and that's based on 1960s research on frequency dependant hearing perception.