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What, Then, Is "Loudness"? Why Loudness Equalization Makes Sense

To compensate for this, the loudness control boosts both bass and treble, but not the middle pitches. With the loudness control engaged, you can listen to music at a soft volume level, but still hear the bass and treble pitches at satisfactory levels. As you turn up the volume (increase overall sound intensity), your sensitivity to middle pitches lessens, relative to bass and treble. So you can cut back on the artificial boost of the loudness control—unless you happen to like bass-heavy and treble-heavy music.

Loudness as a property of tone has no obvious visual analog, except, perhaps, the offensive, garish appearance of colorful, “loud” clothes. That metaphor doesn’t really apply to music, though. Loud music ain’t (necessarily) garish and offensive. You seldom hear anyone saying, “Turn it down, it’s as loud as a fluorescent Hawaiian shirt!”

Like pitch and the other properties of a tone, loud sound and quiet sound elicit different kinds of emotions. More on this in a while.

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