advertisement


In praise of tone controls

O

Oily Rag

We're dooomed
The last amplifier I owned with tone controls (and a whole load of filters) was an Armstfrong 621 integrated amplifier. A very popular amplifier at the time. I bought it new in the late seventies replacing a Rotel RA312 and it lasted until sometime in 1989 when it expired. By that time amplifiers without tone controls were thought to be the future of high fidelity and I replaced the Armstrong with a Cyrus 2, which I still have today and frequently swap in and out of my main system. [I have to say the Cyrus 2 with it's partnering PSX is an excellent bit of kit when recapped]. I've also owned concurrently many other integrated amps and pre-amps, none of which had tone controls either.

But I have several different pairs of speakers, mostly second hand, but some bought new after demoing at a retailer, that, once home sounded different. Most notably a pair of B&W 606's which in my listening room do sound a bit bright. Also a pair of vintage KLH 317's which also have a bright sound. Until now I haven't been able to do much about it other than, in the case of the KLH's, wiring a resister in series with the tweeter; that helped.

Now though I have bought a refurbished Quad 33 to partner the two 303's and other power amps I use. What a joy it is to be able to use tone controls again especially to tone down an enthusiastic tweeter or to adjust for room acoustics. No more chopping and changing speakers around. Tone controls surely help to aid the matching of speakers with amplifiers .... don't they? Also for boosting bass and treble - "loudness" fashion - when listening late at night at low volume.

BTW I'm very pleased with the performance of the 33 and it's versatility, and don't understand why it gets a mixed reception in some hifi circles.
 
Yep, I agree - the 33 is very enjoyable with the 303 and appropriate speakers and music. It really makes no sense to abandon tone controls and filters in the name of some idea about purity - they are a useful practical feature and it’s a shame there aren’t many current preamps around which have these facilities. The speakers and room will alter the sound of the recording far far more than the added circuitry for the tone controls. Of course, we do get used to the sound of our room/speakers over time so some will be happy with things the way they are.
 
You really need tone controls at low volume. The ear/brain's frequency response is volume dependent - even before age and damage set in.
 
I bought a Schiit Loki a few years ago. It’s sitting on the rack, but haven’t felt the need to plug it in yet. I like the idea of tone controls, but life seems too short to be continually getting up, walking across the room and tweaking them a tiny bit. So I don’t bother. But then I’m a tin-eared old clod.
 
I recently bought a cheap (Behringer) 32 band graphic equaliser to find the best settings for my speakers in my room. I will then alter the crossover to achieve the same, and remove the equaliser. The problem, I find, with normal tone controls is that they are too broad a brush to be very useful. YMMV, of course. Fortunately I can measure the in-room response and also change the crossover, but I know many people can't.
 
Still happily using a (modified) Armstrong 626 and its tone controls. Needed to tweak the difference between sources like BBC WS items, CDs, etc. Similarly use (tweaked) QUAD 34s. Have always regarded some form of decent tone controls (and a balance control) as being needed.

Curous that reviewers still seem to diss this whilst accepting DAPs having various sorts of graphic equalisers. Shame the 'tripletone' idea faded out.
 
I used a 33/303 into ESL57s for many years FM source or 401/LP12. Engaging the 33 tone controls lost the purity of the sound and were set to CANCEL. The introduction of CDs was such a backwards step in that system that any differences were masked by the change. I now use changes of interconnect to modify the sound, but no longer have tone controls in my ATC amp with a CDX2,2 source.
 
Note that the filter pot is still active when no filter button is activated. I could hear the difference when I was younger. The filter is good for taming "over enthusiastic" tweeters :D
Nowadays I'm happy with the Tilt function.
 
I also feel tone controls are a bit too ‘broad brush’ but if they make a system sound great in a room where it otherwise wouldn’t then why not!
I am a fan of parametric eq as the final touch for tweaking room response.
I would imagine the main driver behind removal of tone controls was so dealers could push brands as ‘pure’ and un-modified. But in the same breath sell people all manner of ‘upgrades’ to change frequency response!!!
Such is the paradox of audiophoolery; the quest for pure unmolested audio but only as long as it sounds how I think it should!
 
Zombie said:
Note that the filter pot is still active when no filter button is activated. I could hear the difference when I was younger. The filter is good for taming "over enthusiastic" tweeters :D
Nowadays I'm happy with the Tilt function.
Click to expand...
Poor design if the bypass does not do what it says
Tilt is is a better approach too what most of us need than simple tone controls, but rare outside the Quad world
 
FWIW I suddenly remembered that VLC has a graphic EQ. So had some fun experimenting with that to play some AV files via one of my audio systems. Set me wondering about a DIY EQ/tone controls system based on a Linux box and decent DAC. In fact, even more DIY might be using sox! Not really analog, though... :)
 
davidsrsb said:
Poor design if the bypass does not do what it says
Tilt is is a better approach too what most of us need than simple tone controls, but rare outside the Quad world
Click to expand...

I like the QUAD bass 'lift' approach as it can give a nice correction for the inherent LF rolloff of many speakers. But needs a bit more tweakability than the default choices. That plus a 'treble' control and maybe a presence dip/lift one would do the job for me.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
FWIW I suddenly remembered that VLC has a graphic EQ. So had some fun experimenting with that to play some AV files via one of my audio systems. Set me wondering about a DIY EQ/tone controls system based on a Linux box and decent DAC. In fact, even more DIY might be using sox! Not really analog, though... :)
Click to expand...
VLC's EQ may be handy but to my ears it lacks transparency so I wouldn't use it to form an opinion on the quality of digital EQ. iTunes EQ sounds better to my ears, as does the EQ in Elmedia Video Player which I suspect is very similar to the iTunes EQ as the GUI is almost identical. I'm sure you could DIY program a better one though! ;)
 
davidsrsb said:
Poor design if the bypass does not do what it says
Tilt is is a better approach too what most of us need than simple tone controls, but rare outside the Quad world
Click to expand...
Does a Tilt control work like a linear 'seesaw' slope or does it get steeper at the extremes?
 
Yamaha's EQ implementation in their superb CR-2020 was and still is extremely effective IMO. Defeatable Treble and Bass controls with two turnover frequency choices, a defeatable Presence control, plus a Variable Loudness contour. If you are unable to dial in your preferred EQ with these adjustments then there's no pleasing you! :p

05.jpg


03.jpg
 
ToTo Man said:
Yamaha's EQ implementation in their superb CR-2020 was and still is extremely effective IMO. Defeatable Treble and Bass controls with two turnover frequency choices, a defeatable Presence control, plus a Variable Loudness contour. If you are unable to dial in your preferred EQ with these adjustments then there's no pleasing you! :p

05.jpg


03.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a fairly good set of controls from my POV. Although I tend to prefer the bass lift of the QUAD 34 for the real LF.

IIRC The Behringer 9624 (or is it 2496?) is OK but has imperfect ADC/DACs. Is there something similar but better?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top