Loudness button for boomboxes without?

Just wondering if anyone has attempted to add a loudness stage for boomboxes without this feature. Basically amplifying the lower and perhaps upper frequencies of the boombox to compensate for over mid saturation sound. Heck maybe even for tone only boxes??

I found this little discussion over at diyaudio. They discuss adding a passive circuit just after the pre-amp stage. This seems easy enough and could possibly benefit those boomboxes without Loundess that obviously need the eq'ing..

Its on my todo list once I get my workbench back early this fall, but wanted to ask you guys if this has been attempted yet?

Sample spec from that site

Nice idea! Only idea I've had, is changing some components to fine tune the frequency of Bass knob or an equalizer. I have attempted the first one in my Sound 4008 (Conion), but don't know if it made any difference.

Line Out said:

Nice idea! Only idea I've had, is changing some components to fine tune the frequency of Bass knob or an equalizer. I have attempted the first one in my Sound 4008 (Conion), but don't know if it made any difference.

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Really. Thats discouraging. Do you think it was limited at that point by the speakers in the conion?

I'm excited to pursue this but its going to be probably 2 months before I get a space ready for the workbench setup.

Me, personally I prefer the older BASS, TREBLE, Loudness setup over more noisy EQ's. Without a loudness control or button, it just doesn't sound as full-range.....hate EQ's for that missing option....

Cpl

Most EQ's on the boomers are made as cheap as possible and sure they can have worse "control" over the bass frequencies. Is there any boxes with loudness knob, like some Yamaha home amplifiers have?

A good EQ should work exactly like loudness, when its set to boost bass and treble and maybe cut the midrange a bit. Though this indeed is not the case in most boxes... And I think its mainly down to that lowest band is not low enough. There is a ton of EQs that start from 100Hz. They really should start from 40Hz-50Hz or so.

Tweaking an EQ would be nice to try, though I believe you can't control the Q-value. With some chips, the boost/cut can be tweaked with external components. One could make adjustable frequencies, but they should be made with switches and multiple caps, because seems like there is no variable capacitors with high enough values. Or if there is, they are very bulky and expensive.

IIRC, there are some boxes with 5 or 10 band EQ plus(!) Bass & Treble knobs (maybe even a loudness button) which would be really neat.

en...The old school loudness setting sounds more lively & detailed to me, regardless of any EQ or BASS/TREBLE settings....For me, threre's just something about that phat HI-FI sound that can't be beat. Funny, you mentioned Yamaha's Loundness control since they are 1 of my favourite features of the natural sound reveivers....

Cpl

Yes, an EQ chip usually adds distortion and hissing to the signal. Many boxes with multiband EQ:s do have somewhat brittle and empty sound. For example my GF-700.