I damn near forgot about Nearfield listening which I do all the time. I come into it to someone else who talked about head phones which works but it’s a different type of sound.

"Another thing to consider would probably be a nearfield listening setup - when you're just 1-1,5m away from the speakers you'll get more dB at your ears vs. in your neighbor's apartment." It's no use... I'm playing CCR - Centerfield

All joking aside: I agree on near field listening. If you want deep bass at a low volume, just pull your subs out of the corner and put them along a wall halfway down (in the middle of the wall). And also watch your roll-off. If subs aren't cut off well below say, 80 Hz, then mid-bass spills out at higher volumes, travels out an open door or window, and into your neighbor's apartment. It just doesn't go right through the walls like the lower frequencies do. Still higher frequencies are more directional, which explains why you usually hear nothing but bass from your neighbor's music. And nothing is more annoying than hearing a "one-note bass" sound coming from some jackass's car stereo at 1 AM when you're trying to listen to the Carpenters at a low volume.

@@gyrgrls Pro tip: love sound? Never stay in apartment, condo or any shared space!!!!

While many like playing loud music, their neighbors don't enjoy listening to it. That is, unless it's good mariachi from my esteemed Mexican neighbors. ;)

Me too as I find that most of the loudness control EQ contours are 'over the top'.

@@gyrgrls - haha - I have Vietnamese neighbors... and they like... KARAOKE! - I think I can play my decent music loudly when they wail like live boiled cats some weekends. I've never heard them complain anyway... The previous ones in that same house threatened to throw in our windows, but they're outta there... I don't play anything that late anyway. Like around 11 at night is the cut-off, which I think it also is legally on workdays...

@@michaelangeloh.5383 Now, it's only decent music if it's either Linda Ronstadt or Liv Marit Wedvik singing! I'll even settle for Axl Rose, in a pinch... :)

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mJuYlahh3bWXlac.html

I loved that variable loudness control on my old Yamaha. That plus the ability to defeat tone control altogether.

@@bertoray5497 I liked that too. I don't know of anyone else who did that. Maybe some obscure old Luxman or something but Yamaha seems to be the owner of that feature.

I love I can bypass / defeat the tone controls on my H/K. But I also don't need loudness control on it since it brings good sound even at low levels. I found a more powerful amp often can help a bit at low volumes too as a bonus.

I have an older Denon with variable loudness and a bass eq on off button

Yes, it's a silly bummer in the high-end audio industry to think that all customers listen at one fixed volume only. Of course a bypass switch can be made such that it doesn't harm the sound.

@@ThinkingBetter my AVR has that feature, it bypasses all the extra stuff. But I use the “loudness” preset of the EQ quite often being in an apartment.

They do. Just not with a switch. It's an equalizer mode

@oh ok yeah, but then what happens when you want to crank it up? Bass and treble will then be way too much. I’d much prefer properly designed tone controls for low level listening or to make a poor recording listenable as long as you have a pure direct mode for when you don’t need them.

@oh ok LOL, hey, I've setup a lot of audio systems in real furniture environments. Yes, you have to do your best efforts to get the room acoustics to where you want it including any tonal balance helping with the loudness concern. However, realistically, you never get it spot on. Moving a speaker around is not a precision tuning at all when you also have actual furniture and other family members who have no desire to see the room turning into a single person listening room. For digital music I prefer to use modern high quality (algorithm resolution and sample rate) DSP tuning and you can preserve the phase while getting things much better tweaked. Actually, I've never seen a room that couldn't improve with some slight EQ. On the topic of how "harmful" EQ is, you gotta understand what is happening. For example, if you EQ boost a dip of 8dB at 2kHz, you are creating a problem of premature clipping at 2kHz and it will never really sound good, especially when you play loud. So your starting point has to be excellent and EQ is added to make it only better.

@Douglas Blake Absolutely. The same goes for the amount of watts. Small amplifiers, as an example a small Class A amp, can be made to sound fantastic. I have yet to hear a big amplifier that impress me with quality, and not just power..

@AI M: Thanks for the “warning.” My Yamaha RX-550 is like that.

Hmmm... I have an R-S700 but never used the loudness that way. Up until I bought it, I’ve never had a variable loudness, and just assumed the adjustment was for the “amount” of loudness compensation, with an annoying side effect of it seeming to also affect the overall volume. I’ll have to reread the manual about its use. BTW, you made the right choice about whether to buy their tuner section; it’s useless as designed.

@@kc9scott That's interesting that you mentioned the tuner issue. I could be wrong, but I have a strange feeling that over the air radio - as it is now - might eventually replaced with something else. But, that is only a strange feeling on my part.

Addendum: I am not dissing prog rock aficionados. If it's Jadis (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadis_(band)), then we gotta crank it. Like I said: it depends on material...

The beauty of good electrostatics is that they sound superb at low levels and do not need high volume to sound details and revealing. I always listen to my electrostats at fairly low level as high volume is not required for impressive sound.

Yes, ideally you can have the loudness gradually adjusting against your volume setting rather than a fixed switch. Our hearing doesn't work like a switch.

@@ThinkingBetter They typically do gradually adjust based on the volume setting. The switch is just to turn it completely off, if desired.

@@kc9scott Especially in a digital audio path with a DSP, it's obvious to do volume control dependent loudness when you know the volume value. On an analog design with a potentiometer doing the volume, your loudness function is not likely to be volume dependent from anything I've seen?

Lots of pots made for volume-control use have, in addition to the moving wiper contact, a fixed tap partway up the scale. I believe that’s meant to be used so that the lower part of the scale can be fed a signal that’s bass/treble boosted. I have a couple of the little cigar-box-sized integrated amps that Radio Shack used to sell. They have a “tone” control, i.e. a treble control, but no bass control and no loudness switch. Still, they do have an always-on loudness compensation. If I really want to increase its bass output without changing the overall volume, I can do so by just turning down its volume knob and sending a stronger line-level input signal into it.

You sound like you work for PA Audio.

All these control buttons add distortion. How about a special volume control that has better transistors to sound better at low volume, or efficient speakers that play louder & clearer, especially at low volume. Or tweeters with a better tone.

I am sorry for your lost, I feel your pain 😞 . I felt broken when my dad died 20 years ago, He is been visiting me from time to time in my dreams and everything is nice in my dreams but I loose him again when I wake up. I am afraid when my mom dies that I will be too sad to enjoy anything and I even think about how to prepare myself for that. But, our parents would be a lot happier (in heaven) knowing that we are not unhappy and that we enjoy our lives. I am a parent too, and seeing (sometimes) my kids unhappy make me very very sad. So defeat your sadness, enjoy your life, enjoy the music to make your mom smiling in heaven. We shall meet all of our loved ones in some beautiful eternal place. By then, please enjoy your life and listen the music, music is part of human nature an music heals our souls and bodies too.

@@RijadHanic-virtual thank you so much for your kind words. I subscribe every and each thinking you expressed before. I wish the best for you and your whole family. I hope to be back on track someday. I do know that I will meet my mom when I die and that alleviates my grief right now. For the moment, I can't listen to music, my favourite thing. I can stand to watch an entire movie, something I couldn't do before. That is a real proof that the act of listening, something we audiophiles adore, gets to the heart, something that doesn't happen wachting a movie or news. Thank you again my friend 🙏

This isn't a serious comment. You know PSA is way too high-end for anything like that.

They could add it to the Sprout

Amps, wires, & better equipment that had a better tone sounds better at lower volumes. All these control buttons add distortion. How about a special volume control that has better transistors to sound better at low volume, or efficient speakers that play louder & clearer, especially at low volume. Or tweeters with a better tone.

Search ps audio damping factor and you’ll see quite a few videos

Are you a hot single Audiophile around my area?

As the quality of my upstream electronics has increased, so has the quality of my low-volume listening experience. The single greatest gain was going to a nicer phono preamp. At low volumes, correctly applying the RIAA curve with a clean power supply is what will still give the music dynamics and sense of space. Next up for me will be a DAC upgrade, and I expect the result for my digital music will be similar.

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

I totally agree. This is how i built my preamp 40 years ago. Still in use.

@shawn shelt: My ONKYO is like that.

Yes, but that is not the reason why some tracks have more bass though. People just like bass... :P

@@Oystein87 The remastered reissues of the same recordings even. Remixed to sound better on what most people are playing it back on today.

@@zulumax1 Oh, remasters.. Yeah, sometimes. But I am not always so fan of that. Can sound a bit off sometimes. Akd sometimes it works. All depends really

@@Oystein87 Bass is probably not the proper word, more like lower mid bass that makes the vocal less thin, or tonal balance. I run up the volume until the voice sounds right.

@@zulumax1 Yeah, I think I know what you mean.. Sometimes it works but I am not a big fan of it. Same here.

HA...to funny...touche

3:05 you have to use a colon or the time stamp won't work when you click it. Try this one....

@@zulumax1 ok thanks. But does not work on an ipad.

@@geoff37s38 Using an iPhone X, it works fine now.

@@zulumax1 thanks for tip. I need to investigate why not working for me.

Yea, good point. That has been the solution for decades. - I don't even have the most expensive headphones and amplifier, but with some good equalization it sounds terrific. - I will just use speakers in a different room where I'm not in a lot and a surround-system for movies occasionally. All at appropriate times... But I could live with my headphones alone if I REALLY had to shut it for people nearby.

Because thats probably not where the speakers perform the best

Totally agree. I'm planning to upgrading my Hi Fi later this year and a PS Audio Dac and Transport are high on my list, however I won't be buying a PS Audio Pre-amplifier or power amplifier. I don't like valves (tubes) no matter how they sound as they are a pain-in-the-A as they need to be replaced regularly, and the Pre-amplifiers don't have tone-controls. Luxman is my current preference but not committed yet.

@@terryjefferylee6314 I use the Luxman L590AX-II which is 30w class A, sounds great AND has loudness, tone controls, mono, and is built like a tank. nothing not to like (apart, perhaps, the price ;-) )

@@johnclark1884 Thanks for your response. I was considering the AB models but your opinion of the class A is interesting. How do you find the class A heat output? Do you only listen at low volume or do you listen at higher too, if so is 30w enough?

@@terryjefferylee6314 Heat is fine - heatsinks are internal with vents so it runs warm but not scary hot. I have 93dB speakers so most listening

@@johnclark1884 Thank you for your good information, but didn't get what you meant about balanced outputs as it's an integrated amplifier. Why would you want them anyway?

It wont work for bass

@@droidzhunterz6861 Very true. I wonder why it won't work on bass.

@@TTTzzzz Because we are not as sensitive to low frequencies, which are not very directional below the modal region Your hands are essentially ignored by the bass waves. In other words you can't steer it into your ears

@@droidzhunterz6861 I get it'. You kind of listen to bass from all directions. Bass is not focused. Human ears are omnidirectional. Thanks for your explanation!

Same thing

They didn't. They just measured and identified the problem.

@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio Measured with what linear equipment that didn't exist.

It's ironic that Alanis doesn't know the meaning of "ironic" and wrote a song with that name. All the examples in her song are merely unfortunate. It would be ironic if it rained on her wedding day and her husband was a weatherman and he picked the day, otherwise rain isn't ironic.

Perhaps he was young too one day, as a beginning listener and didn't have all this when starting? Now please explain your situation.

@@robinr5787 Yes, it could be that Paul was referencing his early days. But he did not state that. I will not assume that he used to live paycheck-to-paycheck. Maybe he did? That is not established here. He might very well have come from a well-to-do family? Explain why I should explain my situation.

@@NoEgg4u the video is about something different, Paul just related to the person. Your comment is not related to the question, don't know why you brought it up. So, what's your situation?

@@robinr5787 "the video is about something different..." Different than what? "...Paul just related to the person" Is he the person's father? Brother? Cousin? How did you determine that Paul is related to the person? "Your comment is not related to the question, don't know why you brought it up" My comment is related to what Paul said, as I quoted in my original comment. Please read from the beginning. Please read the first line from my original comment. How is what Paul said, and my comment on what Paul said, not clear? "So, what's your situation?" This is the 2nd time that you are asking this question. I am copying/pasting my response from the first time you asked this question: Explain why I should explain my situation. You are all over the map, bringing up items that are not mentioned in the video (such as you knowing who's Paul relative is -- bizarre), making references to who knows what (unclear), pointing out things that are pointless, and repeating requests for information for reasons you refuse to share, and repeatedly attempting to fool me into providing. And, the icing on the cake is that you asked a question that, if you read the first line from the first comment in this thread (the one you replied to), you would not need to ask your question. So we have this dialog, and you do not read the dialog. Is this an exercise in seeing how confusing you can make a simple, original, comment? Or how long you can get someone to keep redirecting the conversation to relevancy? Are you trolling me for attention? Either communicate for a meaningful, productive purpose, or we are done.

@@NoEgg4u sorry, I'm not gonna read all that. This is KZfaq brother, no newspaper. Just relax and enjoy the music!

Completely opposite but ok

And enjoy hearing damage