What type of speaker still sounds good at low listening levels?

crwilli said:
My hypothesis:

At low listening levels, the Fletcher-Munson equal-loudness curves (how our ears perceive bass and treble differently at quiet volumes) matter more than the type of speaker. Horns and high-sensitivity designs can sound more lively at low volume because they preserve dynamics and stay clear near the amp’s noise floor — but they don’t fix the ear’s natural loss of bass and top-end at low SPL.

If you apply proper loudness-compensation EQ, almost any well-engineered speaker can sound full and balanced at quiet levels.

Psychoacoustics dominates; equipment choices just help work around it.
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Careful with facts and common sense there Craig!
There are HE speakers with built in loudness curves in their response. That unsurprisingly sound good a lower levels.
 
AJ Soundfield said:
Careful with facts and common sense there Craig!
There are HE speakers with built in loudness curves in their response. That unsurprisingly sound good a lower levels.
Click to expand...
So they have DSP built in that adjusts for the Fletcher-Munson data and conclusions. Cool, that seems to prove my point. At low listening levels, the human perception of music sound quality is more affected by fletcher-Munson than what equipment is used — UNLESS that equipment (speakers) has built in compensation for the Fletcher-Munson conclusions.

The old Loudness Circuits were included based on that science and were for the users benefit.

As the years went by, we, audiophiles turned against any tone controls in favor of ‘purity’. We lost the script in the process.
 
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No, HE means High Efficiency, passive speakers, no DSP. Passive speakers that have rising bass and treble response, like a loudness curve. It stays on all the time.
 
I was in a conversation with my brother a few decades ago. He thought the loudness button would make it louder..
I explained to him about Fletcher and Muson, and that the best way to deal with our ears listening at low levels was to just take a little bit out of the middle, rather than boosting the lows and highs, which can potentially cause more comb-filtering EQ issues. He just wanted it louder.

BUT - speaking of comb-filtering, I just got a SONY bluetooth speaker. It's nice. I travel. It'll fit in my carry-on. but I feel that it needs a little dip around 140 (we called it the 'cardboard frequency' in school) to clean it up, and a slight boost in the treble... I need to download the app that goes with it to tweak the EQ of this thing.. It's probably going to be the typical "smile" graphic EQ.
 
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