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

[sunburnwilly]

I have not had tone controls or a loudness button for 10 years , and even when I did have them I rarely used them ... [8-|]

[pauln]

"Flat"

No choices for capacitance or gain on the phono/preamp

No tone controls on the preamp

No tone or gain controls on the amp (3.5 SETs)

No adjustments on the networks

My original old 70's SS receiver had tone controls and variable loudness - never used them.

"I was flat before flat was cool."

I beleive a recent post called them "boom and twinkle" - exactly...

[oscarsear]

I drive an Accuphase E-530. New SS top-O-the line 30 watt, class A, integrated. It's got tone controls and I appreciate their availability. I use them when I desire and pull them out otherwise. Not every recording is done well or recorded well and having good tone controls offers options not otherwise available.

[Invidiosulus]

I'd bet the

EQ trend is higher in the lower power range.

Is there any way

we can combine this with Dean's post as a Klipsch Forum 1-2

punch?

Having been away from the forum for a while it's no less then I would have expected in a thread like this.

[DrWho]

I am currently running my system flat, but that is just where my "tweaking to taste" ended up...

[aviserated]

It depends mostly on the sound quality of the recording. But I mostly use the loudness button along with some tone adjustment. I have a handful of CD's that I can run flat .

I love my B&K system with its remote tone controls.

[Daddy Dee]

Merlin has no tone controls driving MKIII's for Khorns. No prob.

Fisher 500C receiver sounds very nice on Heresy's with loudness "ON"

To me, some recordings are redeemed with some tone control.

IMO, "audiophiles" have become absolutely anal about having no tone controls on their gear.

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.

[Speedball]

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.

That is a funny statement, or maybe that guy just imagines how much he really knows.

It was mentioned a couple times above and I agree that while using the tone controls it's easy to go too far which really distorts the sound, even more so than without one all together.

[tuned4life]

marantz 2325 receiver has a tone control switch with settings for in,out,250 hz,4 khz, and 250hz 4 khz. the out position disables bass,mid, and treble controls. the in position allows for tweaking with 12 o clk position being flat. with my lascalas i run it in the out position (flat). with cornwalls i run it in the in position and take just a click off the bass. mid and treble i leave at 12 o clk position (flat).

[Duke Spinner]

I use Digital EQ....

( hey, I've already ruined my sound with Crown, anyways)

i use it for correcting bad tape recordings, and for low level listening late nite

[Duke Spinner]

My old Paragon had a great bass control ........ had a nice set of Whites.

Paragon ... what a great Preamp .....

wonder who the Designer was ....[]

White ... didja have the 27 dial parametric ..?? what, model 4400..??

[maxg]

I answered flat as my pre-amp has no tone controls, but:

1. I now run a sub so that probably should count as a bass boost feature with settings for volume and low pass level.

2. My pre has options for both which set of output capacitors to use (of 2) and the biasing of the tubes - normal or agressive. Again in reality this is a form of tone control.

3. I use a TT - therefore I have a phono stage - therefore I have an equalization unit (RIAA) - although it is not really adjustable (except for gain, impedance and capacitance - which is fairly adjustable I guess).

Now wasn't that confusing....

[JJkizak]

I use an equalizer and tone conrtrols and a Hughes expander/compander. The equalizer feeds the K-horns only as the expander/compander. The amp tone controls are set fro treble +3/4, base +3/4 and loudness +1/2. The equalizer is set for +5db at 30hz, +2 db at 60hz, -3 db at 240 hz, -3 bd at 480 hz, +1 db at 8khz, +2 db at 16khz. The main amp (7.1)which drives the K-horn amp, sub, center channel and side and rear speakers has the tone control set for +10db treble and 0db base. PLC-II is the final setting for CD's. Hearing range is 20hz to 12.5khz. The bass is unbelievable and the cymbol hits are teeth rattlers. Although sometimes the voices are a bit peak-ed which requires toning down abit. The settings will change when viewing DVD concerts however as the treble tone control has to be around flat or +1/2. The TV 5/1 will revert to DD ES with a bit too much bass. The FM broadcasts also have a bit too much bass. The optical out of the MY-HD 120 HDTV computer card is exceptional as also the D-VHS VCR.

JJK

[garymd]

In my upstairs system (Scott 299b and Cornwalls), I use the loudness button - always, but on many recordings I adjust DOWN bass or treble or both. Different ways to get the same result I suppose.

[maxg]

"...and the biasing of the tubes - normal or agressive." ======= What does that mean? md

Really? Good (normal) or bad (agressive).

I dont know the ins and outs - the pre is a Decware ZTPRE and it comes with a variety of oddball stuff on it.

Supposedly it all means it can integrate with any system - but we just proved the lie in that one.

If you are really curious I think the manual is available on line. I no longer have a copy on my hard disk sadly.

[sfogg]

Treated dedicated room, some EQ is applied in my crossovers and I also have room EQ in my pre-amp which addresses areas below 250hz with abnormally long decay times (room resonances).

I also have a volume specific loudness compensation that I tend to use. The pre-amp knows the SPL at the listening position and from that applies the correct amount of compensation to the material.

Based on source material I have tone controls that I use on occasion and a spectral tilt function that gets used as needed too.

Shawn

[sunnysal]

I use my tone controls all the time. my preamp has a nice set of resistor ladders to handle bass and treble control. someday I will have what shawn has, a DEQX and I can optimize crossover, impulse reponse and also EQ digitally. someday, someday. tony

[pico_de_luuks]

I found the placement of my RF-35s relative to the walls and my listening position to be a more effective way of tone control. Took me a few months to get the right balance between stereo image and bass response, whilst still keeping the wife happy[] I haven't used the tone controls since. Just generally happy with the way it sounds.

Afterthought: The more I frequent this board the more I feel the urge to tweek and/or upgrade despite the fact that I'm happy with my current system set-up and can spend many hours listening without fatigue.

I suppose in audio and hifi the saying "ignorance is bliss" really counts.....

[sfogg]

Tony,

I don't have a DEQX, I'm using the DCX2496 for crossovers.

Since I need 3 channels worth of crossovers I would have needed 2 DEQXs. ($$$$) The DCXs were much less expensive.

The main feature I wanted out of the DEQXs was the very high slope crossovers it offered. I was able to create very high slope elliptic type crossovers in the DCX.

The higher frequency corrections the DEQX offers weren't as interesting to me as they would tend to narrow the sweet spot where I'm trying to get good coverage to a larger area. If I ever wanted to try those types of corrects a Tact unit could go ahead of the DCXs and the two could be connected digitally.

Shawn

[classichits]

Well I don't use my la scalas at home. No room big enough.

When I dj with them, I run flat. No tone controls, no EQ. I run

from my mixer into my da-a15 mits, into the la scalas. No tone

adjustment ever needed.