"Loudness" Setting

[justin smith 10+ year member]

i have never used it on any of my setups. one thing i like to show my friends is how my setups are lounder than theres with no bass boost, bass on the deck on zero, no loudness on the deck turned on and all my bass eq flat...

 

[basscort2009 5,000+ posts]

kenwood HU

sub setting 0

LPF 50 ht

bass bost 0

loud on

LINE driver 3/4

gain on amp 1/2

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

loudness only works on low volume levels

 

[bass_lover1 10+ year member]

loudness only works on low volume levels

Indeed.

Search for Fletcher-Munson curves.

 

[Plutoman 10+ year member]

as long as the sub isnt bottoming out its fine.. but many people will turn loudness on because its louder and they wont know they are killing their sub

No... Clipping can cause the coils to burn up, and it's likely that loudness is causes clipping.

Low volume levels it's good, if you notice a difference at max volume, then you either need to reset the gains, at the correct levels, or you ARE sending a clipped signal. You might not hear distortion, as it's hard to hear in bass, but it'll be there.

 

[Jakeeck 10+ year member]

No... Clipping can cause the coils to burn up, and it's likely that loudness is causes clipping.
Low volume levels it's good, if you notice a difference at max volume, then you either need to reset the gains, at the correct levels, or you ARE sending a clipped signal. You might not hear distortion, as it's hard to hear in bass, but it'll be there.

i wasnt sure if clipping the HU would affect the sub so i left that part out

 

[halfwaytohell 10+ year member]

i dont use it no more in the past i have, with my new sealed set up i might try it on low

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

clipping won't cause any damage as long as the speakers can handle the extra power

 

[30hrtz 10+ year member]

I have my pioneer 5900 loudness set to high for my frontstage because it sucks. With the loud on and the subwoofer set to -3, i can actually make out the words pretty nicely with kicker 4x6s in the dash and 14 year old stock door speakers. no competitions for me, just daily commuter vehicle, so volume is relatively low most of the time.

 

[oldschool4me 10+ year member]

loudness only works on low volume levels

this. guess this would be kind of similar to how a factory hu works when your turning it up and at some point the bass doesnt get any louder but it doesnt get overly distorted.

i never use loudness, boost, and my eq's are flat, sub level on the hu daily -6 to -2 depending on if im listening to cd or xm. if i want to show off the bass then i turn up the sub level.

 

[Alpine4life89 10+ year member]

Using Loudness violates a car audio law. It boosts frequencies the same way bass boost does to your subs. There is no need in using it.

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

heat = power

that's thermal failure, you're over powering them

 

[ngsm13 5,000+ posts]

Nuh-uh...

nG

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

No loudness, no bass or treble boost on my setup. A few tweeks and cuts of 1-2 decibels on the 16 band graphic EQ. Gains are set by DMM then tweaked by ear so the sub bass still keeps up at low volumes but the setup doesn't distort unless it's rap with LOTS of deep bass and the volume gets really high. Some other people will set the sub amp gain with the head unit sub volume quite a bit less than max then make further adjustments with the sub volume at the head unit if there's clipping at high volumes. For alot of people it's the best way to get good bass at low volumes and leave the right flexibility in the system, whereas loudness boosts frequencies at both extremes of the range.

It's too complicated of a question to say yes, loudness will always do damage, or no, it never will. It also depends on where the gain is set, what the subs are rated for rms, how much you're already sending them, etc... If you're giving them less than rms with reasonably set gain loudness probably won't do anything. If you're feeding them close to rms or more and you're aggressive with your gain and play it like that contiuously with loudness on too premature failure may be more likely.

The other common argument against it is even if it doesn't put you in the red zone, it makes the sound peaky and artificial and causes some frequency ranges to clip before some others, preventing the whole system from staying clear to the highest possible volume. Not an issue for most of us, as these concerns are more for SQ purists. There are probably less than a handful of those on here and they already know what place the loudness feature has in a system. Many of them are also running the kind of setups where tons of boost isn't necessary to make up for subpar equipment.

 

[AllenH427 10+ year member]

If you set your headunit how you want it first, then the gains, no harm done, am I right?