Should you use Fletcher-Munson loudness compensation?

[Sal1950]

Movie mixes are rubbish, they are just as fake as. grrr,

Best you then stick to "chick flicks" and the stuff on the Hallmark channels

 

[Sal1950]

I'm considering buying an Audyssey:X licence.

It's not available for Apple gear at this time.
If you have a Windows computer, install Bluestacks and run Editor on that.
Works perfectly for many including myself.

 

[dasdoing]

I think it's more the F-M curve name, like frigidare is stuck in our heads after all these years.
I have no idea if DEQ follows F-M, Iso-226 (of which I was not aware) or any other comp example.
It was just the first thing that came to my head.

F-M is kind of like a generic trademark it seams? the term should be equal-loudness-contour

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

on a sidenote: Fletcher-Munson is terribly outdated and actualy sounds bad for loudness compensation.
we have Iso-226 for 19 years now and people still rely to Fletcher-Munson from 1933?
[Dasdoing out]

It's hard to believe that either Fletcher or Munson even had access to a speaker that would reproduce anything below 80hz back then. If anyone here is advocating the use of loudness compensation this is notification to hand in your 'I'm an audiophile' card as soon as possible for everyone's benefit.

 

[solderdude]

I would think they did not need to have speakers and reproduction gear that had to go down to 20Hz for this research.
You can use instruments or something that generated frequencies at a certain measurable level (mics could measure that low).

 

[Sal1950]

If anyone here is advocating the use of loudness compensation this is notification to hand in your 'I'm an audiophile' card as soon as possible for everyone's benefit.

How 1985 of you. LOL

 

[Deleted member 23424]

Where can I find the curves mentioned in this thread to try in REW?

I'm experiencing quite severe Fletcher-Munson-Sofa issues. My woofers are firing partially into the ends of two sofas so I'm suffering the effects described in this thread plus some. Fine at high volume but thin sounding at lower levels.

Would like to try a few of the curves suggested in this thread. Much obliged.

 

[abdo123]

Where can I find the curves mentioned in this thread to try in REW?

I'm experiencing quite severe Fletcher-Munson-Sofa issues. My woofers are firing partially into the ends of two sofas so I'm suffering the effects described in this thread plus some. Fine at high volume but thin sounding at lower levels.

Would like to try a few of the curves suggested in this thread. Much obliged.

i posted some filters few pages ago.

 

[Deleted member 23424]

I generated two filters that would transform a response that is flat at 80 Phon to flat at 60 Phon. Feel free to experiment.

View attachment 176274

Do you mean this post? If so, how do I translate this into a curve for REW? I only started using REW this week and thus far any curves I've used have been a list of freqs and values saved as txt files.

 

[Deleted member 23424]

Aha! Found the EQ Filters button

 

[dasdoing]

How 1985 of you. LOL

next he will tell us that room EQ is not hi-fi lol

loudness compensation is a must if you want to hear music at low levels that are mixed at much higher levels. But the loss of bass is actualy is allready kind of compensated in the Harman-Curve. So I don't think it makes sense for people using it

 

[Sal1950]

next he will tell us that room EQ is not hi-fi lol

Yep

loudness compensation is a must if you want to hear music at low levels that are mixed at much higher levels. But the loss of bass is actualy is allready kind of compensated in the Harman-Curve. So I don't think it makes sense for people using it

I don't know, if we use any room curve it's active at all volume levels, a constant.
The Harman Curve is another constant intended to somewhat compensate for normal listening room losses at the MLP
The F-M or Iso-226 was based on our hearing perception at varying SPL levels.
Seems as if it was still a viable thing to use?
But your by far the more learned on the issue than I.

 

[EEE272]

on a sidenote: Fletcher-Munson is terribly outdated and actualy sounds bad for loudness compensation.
we have Iso-226 for 19 years now and people still rely to Fletcher-Munson from 1933?
[Dasdoing out]

As shown above, Yamaha implemented the iso curves.
But as someone already pointed out above, many just use the name FM.

 

[EEE272]

It's hard to believe that either Fletcher or Munson even had access to a speaker that would reproduce anything below 80hz back then. If anyone here is advocating the use of loudness compensation this is notification to hand in your 'I'm an audiophile' card as soon as possible for everyone's benefit.

I believe they used headphones. There are some other loudness curves for speakers.

Edit: I looked it up. FM used indeed headphones.
Robinson and Dadson used an anechoic chamber and the iso curves are following Robinson and Dadson.

 

[MKreroo]

The experience is quite positive with A/B-ing with and without the Phon compensation. not absolutely perfect but i feel i can live with myself if i had to listen this way for the rest of my life.

@solderdude do we have any idea at what SPL the Harman research on headphones was conducted? I'm guessing the bass has a tiny bit of Phon compensation baked in.

just in case, I think one of Sean's study found that the loudness level has very little to do with the bass preference
as per Oratory here and here

 

[EEE272]

just in case, I think one of Sean's study found that the loudness level has very little to do with the bass preference
as per Oratory here and here

In Toole's book (3rd edition), he speaks favorably of loudness. Further, he explicitly speculates that the treble/bass study by Olive might have been biased due to low volume levels, as the resulting curve was steeper than the predictions by the optimal curve.

I think he might be right because this could also explain the treble. The expert listeners might have also compensated for the higher sensitivity up to 8k to match their usual expectations for a balanced experience. This would reflect an expected loudness compensation.

 

[MKreroo]

In Toole's book (3rd edition), he speaks favorably of loudness. Further, he explicitly speculates that the treble/bass study by Olive might have been biased due to low volume levels, as the resulting curve was steeper than the predictions by the optimal curve.

I think he might be right because this could also explain the treble. The expert listeners might have also compensated for the higher sensitivity up to 8k to match their usual expectations for a balanced experience. This would reflect an expected loudness compensation.

Interesting, wonder if there is any on-going or recent study that address this, or perhaps look deeper into it.

 

[dasdoing]

Yep


I don't know, if we use any room curve it's active at all volume levels, a constant.
The Harman Curve is another constant intended to somewhat compensate for normal listening room losses at the MLP
The F-M or Iso-226 was based on our hearing perception at varying SPL levels.
Seems as if it was still a viable thing to use?
But your by far the more learned on the issue than I.

Harman curve is a gross generalization anyways

 

[howard416]

It's hard to believe that either Fletcher or Munson even had access to a speaker that would reproduce anything below 80hz back then. If anyone here is advocating the use of loudness compensation this is notification to hand in your 'I'm an audiophile' card as soon as possible for everyone's benefit.

Well, I know there are carpenters out there who don't use power tools...

 

[luft262]

View attachment 176066I know many are familiar with the Fletcher-Munson or equal loudness curves. In a nutshell:

“The Fletcher Munson Curve contains a set of graphs that show that when you listen to music at a lower volume, mid-range frequencies will be sound more prominent, whereas high and low frequencies will be somewhat suppressed.

However, when the volume is increased, the reverse happens – high and low frequencies become more pronounced while the mid-range frequencies fade into the background.

In other words, the Fletcher Munson Curve demonstrates the average sensitivity of a human ear to audio signals of different frequencies at varying sound levels.”

I have a few questions about what this implies in practice.

Should you compensate for this in your own listening? I’m aware in psychoacoustics the brain naturally compensates for many things, so does fully adjusting for equal loudness compensation at low levels sound wrong or is it more similar to the intended mix? And in reference to music, what level is considered reference that you would compensate in relation to?

Given I tend to listen to music at lower volumes I am a bit lost on what to use as a target response curve for EQing my speakers. I could just do what sounds “best” but a little extra bass always sounds good for a little while so I don’t exactly trust my ears to get it right.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is what Denon Dynamic EQ is doing. I find that I do like it. I'm not sure exactly what it's doing (can't see a REW graph of it or anything) but I think it's boosting the low frequencies as the volume decreases from "reference," which I think is around 85dB. To my ears music and movies sound better with it on, but I do the vast majority of my listening below reference. It pays to test out all of the features and extras on your AVR! I'm a big fan of audio science and graphs. I like REW graphs, Audyssey XT32 etc. but sometimes you just have to turn it on and off and listen and decide what sounds better!