Poll: Do you run flat or do you tweak bass & treble?

[mobile homeless]

I have even read articles stating that audiophiles don't need tone controls, because with their ears they can imagine how the music is supposed to sound. I have to laugh at that.

Where in the world did you read this, Dee? This sounds like something that someone that loved tone controls would say trying to summarize someone that didnt favor tone controls. The word "audiophile" now has more negative connotations than "liberal" these days, perhaps for good reason. On the other hand, it sounds to me like this memory of yours went through some re-wording in translation.

In my opinion, the reason people dont prefer tone controls is most are trying to remove parts that degrade transparency, and tone controls, in general, are surely not a help here in this regard. Many tend to be mediocre and coarse and you get an improvement in transparency when either OUT of the system or when switched out of the circuit. Personally, I think they are a hindrance once you get your system to a certain level of see-thru quality (of course, as Dean did mention, there are many forms of filtering throughout the chain). I dont know of many quality preamps that run them for this very reason. I have actually done away with as much switching/filtering as I can in my Cary leaving only source selection and volume attenuation. The balance is even gone. This is personal preference and I have eschewed tone controls since the early 80s. That being said, I have tone controls in all my vintage equipment but dont find myself using them either (they arent particularly accurate either with "flat" rarely being so).

As for the loudness button, what can I say. I dont think I have heard a loudness circuit that I have felt sounds natural enough in implementation to use. The ones that dont roll out at as the volume increases are even worse. My brother constantly uses "loundess" in his system and every time I bring over some music for him to hear, I groan as ever single boosting device is activated, producing a sound not unlike a disco. He loves it. IT sounds as canned and artificial as a SRS WOW, another "godsend" for the MP3-Boombox crowd.

I share the same disdain for the average equalizer - I personally find them degrading sound and outweighing the advantages. Obviously, some are far better than others but I havent heard one I felt didnt degrade the sonics in too long to remember. The goal of natural transparency took front and center and it seemed that additions to the equation were not IN the equation. I think I have shifted more toward musicality as a goal but still favor the quality of ultimate natural transparency as part of the goal.

I will say this is a personal preference and some love the ability to be able to tweak the response to their liking for each recording. I understand the motivation and goals here but just found them causing more harm than good in my applications.

kh

[maxg]

let me ask it this way--- What does normal and aggressive sound like? md

Aggressive is just as it sounds. Harder, harsher and a lot less musical. I would imagine it would be useful for silk dome tweeters or other much more laid back sound system. I never use it - only occasionally I flick the switch just to see how bad it sounds and then I go back.

Frankly the choice of output capacitors is similarly loaded, one sounds right - the other ....er....wrong - although the difference is a lot less dramatic than with the bias adjustment.

Help any?

[DrWho]

So, I could add a subwoofer, or turn up a tone control, but IME, "boosting" thusly often increases muddiness even though improving sonic balance, while adding virtually nothing to the musical engagement. i.e. the sound improves in some ways, gets worse in others, and the music is, as always, unaffected....

And I would argue that you were never using the correct tool for the job...did you have an EQ available where you could adjust the Q, center frequency, and volume? Many people get so frustrated with their fixed tone controls and then dismiss the entire concept of EQ....when in reality they just need a better EQ section. So if something is bass shy, you turn the bass tone knob, and it ruins another part of the sound, then chances are your bass tone knob doesn't have the right Q or center frequency for the adjustment you're trying to make. And I would consider these three adjustments to be the absolute bare minimum one needs in order to properly EQ a system....there are lots more fancy tools out there that allow even more 'adaptive' control.

Also, the needed EQ is going to change between every single song (or at the very least between every single album). So if a small change sounds good on one song, the odds are extremely low that this same EQ would be necessary on the next one. So on the next song the EQ sounds like crap because you tune in on the area that is overexagerated - and then when you go back to the first song that you corrected, the EQ still sounds like crap because you've got the overexagerated sound stuck in your head. It's a huge psychological battle compounded by the limitation of the gear available.

I know it's been touched on a few times, but anyone that chooses different speakers and amplifier combinations is in a very twisted way EQ'ing their system. Most of this kind of EQ'ing isn't happening solely in the frequency domain so it's hard to quanitify the differences, but all the talk that goes on about "warmness this" "coldness that" is in its own form a system of EQ...a system that I would refer to as the wrong tool for the job (especially considering the crappy acoustical environments most everyone is in).

Btw, the end conclusion of the argument that "you can still enjoy the music" lands you with the Bose acoustimas system. Nevertheless, I use the terms of "music ears" and "critical ears" to differentiate between listening to enjoy and listening to improve. The psychology of hearing is such an interesting topic - especially when you realize how much it affects the music we listen to. (I've had my worst and best sounding mix being the exact same thing simply because I can listen to it in two different ways).

[Ray Garrison]

Interesting question.

I have two amps which I swap in and out as fancy strikes. One is

an old Rotel integrated (RA820BX2), the other an older TEAC

(AS100). The Rotel has an on/off button and a volume

control. The TEAC has a bazillionty-seven different ways to

adjust the sound - bass, mid and treble shelving with variable

inflection points, loudness contours. When I have the Rotel in

the chain I don't miss the controls. When I'm using the TEAC I

play with the settings for every album. I have no idea what that

means.

[mobile homeless]

[maxg]

Oh I get it Kelly,

Ray should buy a Crown - yes?[]

[Gilbert]

Typically FLAT, but on occasion (with the C22) I will fiddle with the tone controls.

Good input Mark and Ray.

[MarkBK]

I run the system flat - no tone control adjustment. In reading through the thread a second time, I think mdeneen hinted at what I think we are really addressing and that is the engineering/production limitations of the recordings.

After years of fiddling with tone controls, parametric EQ's etc, I found myself just going back to tuning the room and accepting the recording as is - focusing on the music as experience and turning off the "analytics of sound" thought process. Getting back to the real focus - the music / performance and not the technical aspect.

Of course, the most important aspect never mentioned is the quality of our hearing - how often are we testing our hearing - and at what level of detail? All too often we have hearing defects that are blamed on equipment. In todays noisy world this is probably our most serious system defect.

Mark

[maxg]

Yeah, that helps. I'd have to assume then (hey, why not) that it changes the HF response. Although, usually changing "bias" only changes distortion and gain. That's what caught my eye - the idea of changing the bias. Interesting. md

I picked this up from the pdf file on-line on the amp. you might have to save the file to your hard disk and open it seperately to be able to read it:

[crazytubepower]

no tone controls here...so i guess flat...

[DrWho]

Beautiful amplifiers and speakers create an OVERALL SOUND that is pleasing with all the music, in spite of sonic imperfections from piece to piece. At least I think they should...

I entirely agree with everything you just mentioned and I wanted to add that the end conclusion of this statement is that it is bad to have a "revealing" system - and a "concieling" system would be the ideal. The reason I bring this up is because so many boast about their "better" speakers that blatantly reveal flaws in poor recordings. I would argue that a better speaker works to mask these flaws while also allowing the details of better recordings to still shine through. How can a speaker be better if it reduces the enjoyment of the music? Maybe having worked in a few studios I have a different perspective, but if I wanted a revealing sound I would just bust out a pair of studio monitors...

I know this goes against the mindset of many who love the horn sound (myself included), but it seriously makes me want to give up on "high-fidelity" and just go enjoy my music/movies on my dad's pair of bose bookshelf speakers. Don't get me wrong...I can hear and appreciate the hi-fi sound, but after the wow factor subsides it doesn't really enhance the music enjoyment...though I must confess that it enhances the critical enjoyment (heck, everyone knows guys like to tinker with stuff). []

[marems]

I personally like to run flat , But I always had to kick the bass control up +10 on the KLF-30's for room correction. It gives the 30's better extension.

[Paladin]

Hmm...I was just paruzing the forums looking for anything I might need

to address and this thread caught my eye...not because of any

administration task but the topic was generally interesting.

I read most of the posts...and I suppose that it all really depends on

what you like to hear. However I really liked the post by

mobile homeless

on the previous page to this one. I thought that was quite an eloquent

argument and explanation as to why one might chose not to have tone

controls in one's system.

Personally I agree with a minimalist approach. Adding more circuits to

the singal path seems to only cause distortion or coloration unless you

are using gear of the highest quality...I don't think I've heard any

gear with tone controls that I liked better when using said controls.

In my experience truly well designed speakers and gear, properly set

up, in a properly adjusted room, and properly chosen speakers coupled

with a subwoofer if/when necessary...(ie buy speakers with lower bass

response if that's the point...not blast the bass and switch in the

loudness on a pair of budget bookshelves with 5" drivers...they're

never really going to do 40Hz if they were designed to roll off below

72)...do more than

any tone controls can.

I know many use the controls or EQ's to dial in a recording...and it

makes more sense with digital, I mean with CD you kind of just have to

go with how it's mixed and

recorded or try with different DACs. However I know analog guys that

have whole lists of tone arm and cartridge adjustments that they dial

in for different LP's...just adjusting stylus angles can have huge

changes in frequency response of the recording...

Well...for me if tone controls are available on a piece of gear I audition

in my listening system...I generally don't use them and set them to

whatever is neutral (0, "noon" position, etc...) Currently my Aragon

18k doesn't have tone controls...and neither does my father's Chenin

pre. In fact for a while we went so far as to remove the necessity of a

pre from his system by using a Wadia CD player, which has the

ability to adjust the volume of it's outputs and can be coupled

directly to any amp.

However crossover tone controls on a speaker are a different story.

Often they must be set to some setting. I have an old pair of ESS

speakers that have Heil top drivers and they have a "brilliance"

control on the crossover...it only has three positions...and I do

adjust it to soft. There's no way I can get around it without removing

and replacing the crossover anyway.

Anyway I only take this approach on a system set up to provide a good

2.0 listening experience. On most smaller systems for general ambient

music I'll jigger with tone controls.

[J.4knee]

I have the odd privilege of answering you initial query with one word .....Yes.

[Audio Flynn]

At low SPL my AMPEX vintage pre rolls off a little of the bottom and to

a lesser degree the top; then I use a little tone control.

At "realistic" listenig levels I run flat.

"Realistic" to me is more than 10 wpc at the Chorus IIs

[AnalOg]

In my two channel system I have no choice but to run flat, not that I have the desire to change it. As it plays a balanced sound to these deaf ears.

My HT system in the family room has a Pioneer vsx47tx receiver hooked up in the mix. It has one of those automatic setup functions that sets the EQ settings automatically when you hook up the mic and activate the "auto surrond sound setup". When I have the EQ function on it sounds enimic to me, turning it off the system sounds much more dynamic and alive, so I perfer it off at this point.

Tom

[Strabo]

I'll tell you what would be an interesting poll. Have a combo poll.

Flat or EQ

Then:

Tube less than 50 watts

Tube greater than 50 and less than 100 watts

Tube greater than 100 watts

SS less than 50 watts

SS greater than 50 and less than 100 watts

SS greater than 100 watts

I'd bet the EQ trend is higher in the lower power range.

I agree. It would be very interesting to see the results if you could draw a correlation between amplifier power and use of EQ.

I bet those that bought into the wattage wars would be more apt to using EQ. Those that use low power would probably fall into the minimalist camp where the less gadgets in the signal path the better.

My vote went to no controls, bypassed, switched out, whatever the phrase.

But I do EQ the room with the use of selective (broadband) absorption and speaker placement, where placement is the biggest impact. For example moving as little as +/- 1/2 inch increments from the rear wall can clean or create boomy bass.

That said, I set the speakers (read EQ'd the room) to my liking over the course of a couple of months and haven't changed it since.

[ben.]

Mark, the switched tone circuits on the 12 & 12A are as good as I can imagine for mild corrective use. Generally, I'd just boost the bass one click (sounded like 2 or 3 dB to me) when listening at very low levels. For some old or semi-pro recordings, I'd do a bit more, but for most anything of reasonable quality, that was it. I did appreciate the fact that I could fill in the low end without screwing up the 300-500Hz region.

I don't miss the Paragons now, though. The 12 went to a Greek guy with relatives in Chicago, the A is somewhere between here and Munich.

I think it's important to note that it's a matter of fact that use of EQ introduces phase shift (by its very nature) and distortion. Cutting rather than boosting will minimize the audibilty of this distortion, but resonances will still pop up around the center frequency. Even old George Massenburg will admit this.

[Shade]

I voted on using tone controls. With my Scott, I'll set the controls to

flat before I put on a recording, and adjust it from there if it needs

it. Some of this is due to recording quality on an album, and some due

to the fact that I have a few minor issues with the room. I'd look into

room treatment, but a) it's an apartment & I hope to be done

renting next year anyway.