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In praise of tone controls

Jim Audiomisc said:
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?
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I'm not clued up on external EQ units so am the wrong person to ask. For critical listening I use the parametricEQ AU plugins in Audirvana and for casual TV/movie watching I route the second analogue output of my DAC into an old-skool 33-band Technics SH-8065 graphic EQ from the 80s that is set to mirror my digital EQ settings as closely as possible. I can match the settings closely in the mids and highs but the Q of the Technics isn't narrow enough to perform forensic lopping of bass modes.
 
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I miss the 34 bass lift in the new Quad preamps, 99/Elite had just one too boomy choice, Artera pre has none
 
DSPeaker Anti-mode 2.0 ADC/DAC is transparent to my ears (mine will have to be prised out of my cold dead hands, etc., etc.) There is mention in the spec of 40 bit, 6.144 MHz processing, which is a bit different to the numbers more usually encountered in audio... (though whether audibly so, who knows).

Quite apart from its LF room correction function, the device has 16 parametric EQ filters available along with every tone control likely to be useful, including tilt and variable loudness. There are four instantly selectable profiles available for different setups.

I was interested to see that others (including Yamaha's designers) have perceived a need for a Presence control. One of my profiles has a 1.5dB presence lift centred at 1kHz, Q = 0.7 and gets switched in quite often. Some days my ageing ears want it; others, they don't...
 
I recently purchased a Technics SU 7100 amplifier, serviced and the wooden casing is tip top.

Although this is setup with IMF speakers and rotel c.d. in a spare room, I really should bring it in to the HiFi room and see how it sounds for a week.
the tone controls and loudness switch are calling out to be twiddled.
 
marshanp said:
DSPeaker Anti-mode 2.0 ADC/DAC is transparent to my ears (mine will have to be prised out of my cold dead hands, etc., etc.) There is mention in the spec of 40 bit, 6.144 MHz processing, which is a bit different to the numbers more usually encountered in audio... (though whether audibly so, who knows).

Quite apart from its LF room correction function, the device has 16 parametric EQ filters available along with every tone control likely to be useful, including tilt and variable loudness. There are four instantly selectable profiles available for different setups.

I was interested to see that others (including Yamaha's designers) have perceived a need for a Presence control. One of my profiles has a 1.5dB presence lift centred at 1kHz, Q = 0.7 and gets switched in quite often. Some days my ageing ears want it; others, they don't...
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Mine made a huge difference - it's so far beyond "tone controls" the comparison isn't really fair.
 
I like tone controls. Mostly I like a bit of bass & treble boost at low volume.

I like the idea that some people say they're listening to music as the musician intended, but the producer and engineers have their input too and sometimes they get it wrong.
 
I've just been re-reading an issue of HFN from 1979 where some record producers/engineers are commenting on their experiences with the early digital recording systems compared with ye olde analogue tape. The side-comments about what they had to do to deal with the limits of analogue tape and LP cutting as compared with digital are quite really interesting in terms of how they had to 'tweak' the music to get it to fit and play back sounding good via analogue.

Particularly interesting as the day before I'd been listening to a 96k/24 transfer I made of a superb direct cut LP. Lots of judgement needed for that by the engineers as well as the musicians. Really lovely result, though.
 
I’d like to add my three penance. I’ve been running a pair of Linn Kabers Aktiv with three AV5105 power amps fed by an AV5103. Quite a nice system plus very flexible with inputs. Anyway, about 18 months ago I bought a Technics SU3500 integrated amp. It was a wreck and I bought it as a project for little money. I’ve completely recapped and serviced it. I did try it out in my main domestic system, mainly just make sure all was working ok, then kept it in my workshop just for setup purposes with tape/cassette decks. All in all I’ve not taken a lot of notice of it.

After reading this thread (while being bored convalescing following a knee replacement) my curiosity was tweaked. I’ve moved the SU3500 from the workshop and started using the pre section to feed my power amps, etc, and I have to say that I’m very impressed. For a 40+ year old technology it is fantastic. Plus, I love the ability to tweak the tone controls to get a sound I like! I have my DAC as an aux input and can stream of off the internet and can just ease the edginess that some of the files have. I’m also able to input from tape, vinyl and fm with very rich smooth sound. I’m finding the channel separation and dynamic range better and easier to listen too without loosing any detail. I appreciate that a new broom always sweeps clean and I may go back to the AV5103 if only for the flexibility, but I’m really enjoying this amp.
There is one downside though, I have to keep leaving the chair to adjust but hey, that also gives the new knee some exercise.
 
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... :)
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I have tried out sox's equalization capability here. Plumbed into my LMS server and fed with EQ parameters calculated from REW measurements using its EQ calculator.

By keeping it simple and cutting down just the two main room resonances below 300 Hz there's a small audible difference and I find I set the volume control a little higher. However after running with this EQ on for a few weeks and then off for a few weeks I find I don't I miss it. It's just a little different when engaged. Probably this room is not too bad for resonances (but there are some boundary suck-outs) and if the room were worse I might find the need to keep the EQ in place. But having done this just once I might try again some time to see if I messed anything up first time round and could do better.
 
Fletcher and Munson in the 1930's determined the ear reacts differently at different loudness and their loudness curves are the result. Depending on how loud you listen you will need more or less bass and treble.

The loudness button was a usefull setting but reviewers had difficulty with measuring the response curves of speakers when that was enabled so they decided to make it easier on themselves and inform the public that it was absolutely and undeniably totally wrong to have such an item and/or bass or treble adjustements in the signal path.

Dale Carnegy in "how to win friends and influence people" stated that if you keep repeating the same untruth for 6 months then the public will believe it as the truth.

Having no bass, treble or loudness control has had as end result an tremendous increase of swapping speakers around till one finds something that is close to what the listener is liking is his environment.

Far easier, and lots cheaper, can be achieved with almost any speaker and that the listener likes to listen to in his or her environment. Speaker manufacturers love the "pure signal $$$$ path" approach.

The amplifier manufacturers tried then with equalizers to re-introduce some tone control unfortunately the public is so conditioned to "no tone controls in the signal path" that hardly anyone uses it. You are not an audiphool ;) if you have tone controls or an equalizer.
 
Well executed tone controls don’t alter SQ at all. Why would they? The signal just goes through a cap and a resistor after all.
 
chartz said:
Well executed tone controls don’t alter SQ at all. Why would they? The signal just goes through a cap and a resistor after all.
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The old fashioned tone controls introduce phase shift, modern computer EQ don't. There are heated arguments about it but it has been proven that phase shift is audible. How much it is anoying is debatable since there will always be some phase shift in music due to ambience , room reflections etc. I'm not worried about it.
 
Phase shift in the analogue domain is not really an issue, in my experience. Good recordings (rare) and good acoustics (also rare) may not need any tone controls anyway. But in many cases, they are a blessing.
 
AmadeusMozart said:
The old fashioned tone controls introduce phase shift, modern computer EQ don't. There are heated arguments about it but it has been proven that phase shift is audible. How much it is anoying is debatable since there will always be some phase shift in music due to ambience , room reflections etc. I'm not worried about it.
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The real problem for reviewers was a that a small tweak on the tone controls often had an effect that swamped the near-fantasy 'differences' they heard between amps. So shot a lot of 'subjective reviewing' in the foot. 8-]
 
I love the EQ control implemented in DSP afforded by my RME ADI-2 fs DAC, it has 'tone controls' treble and bass, which can be adjusted for their roll off frequency etc or it can be used as 5 channels of parametric EQ allowing particular EQ profiles, pre configured, to be called up at a touch of a button on the remote. Great for neutralizing those tunes which have over blown bass. Or you can play with the parametric setting on the fly.

I'm not sure how I would cope without EQ controls after this.
 
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Today I replaced the M-stage headphone amplifier that was used as my preamp (it has two inputs and also an RCA output).

In came a Kenwood that has 7 frequencies that can be adjusted and a loudness control. I'm waiting for my "new" tuner to arrive before doing critical listening.
 
Big Tabs said:
I recently purchased a Technics SU 7100 amplifier, serviced and the wooden casing is tip top.

Although this is setup with IMF speakers and rotel c.d. in a spare room, I really should bring it in to the HiFi room and see how it sounds for a week.
the tone controls and loudness switch are calling out to be twiddled.
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Well, it took me nearly a year to get around to this o_O

The Technics SU 7100 paired with the IMF Super Compacts is a good match.
Playing records on a Technics SL-D202 and letting the Loudness Switch do its thang - I am a pig-in-poo.

I have a few K-Tel type thin compilations, and the tone controls make the unlistenable at least tolerable.
(Unfortunately) I spoke to The Wife about this, and we identified that the subwoofer on the main system is sometimes used as a loudness switch for thin recordings.

gets me thinking about a new amp. with more knobs than I am used to. Vicar. :rolleyes:
 
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