Do you need bass and treble? Or are you a purist that goes flat.

I leave my equipment flat and tweak around that. Cables, Resonators, Sitting positons, Tubes and those sorts of things. It continues to be a crazy maze always looking for the most natural presentation.

Regard, Tom

 

As said before my pre amp does not have tone controls and that is just fine with me.

It would have been nice if this had been set up as a poll.

 

Same here: flat, direct mode, "straight wire with gain" for that nice open sound.

 

My tone controls can be bypassed with a switch, so I think I have the best of both worlds - flat most of the time, but available if the recording (or room) calls for their use.

Likewise, I'm glad my electronic crossover is continuously variable for the sub crossover point and volume. Some music calls for more bass than others, and I enjoy being able to make it sound *just right for me*.

And I wouldn't want to do without my Balance control either...

 

Yup. That's what I've got on my preamp too - I wouldn't want it any other way.

 

I need both bass and treble (I guess I am one of the few on this forum). I prefer flat recordings, but prefer to adjust them to my own ears. I don't own tubes (I like them, but just don't have any) and can't rely on cables to do the work reliably.

 

Actually, not to speak for him, but my guess is that Steve does what he wants to do. They pay him to use his best judgement. If they want a specific type of mastering, there are a lot of other mastering people out there.

 

I get the feeling that most of the people here who thrive on "flat" *could* afford it...

Again, though, what is "flat"? If you get different sounds with different speakers (for example), clearly one (or both) isn't "flat".

 

Hasn't Steve said that he doesnt futz with things on the mastering side so much so that if we want we can play with the eq? Maybe I am mistaken.

 

Same here.

 

Depends on the album. Some things are very "futzed with".

 

But in general they arent , right? I guess the point I was getting at is if you have something that is as straight from the master as possible it gives you , the listener, more liberty to play around with the eq rather than having it already "fixed" for you by the mastering process. Kind of hard to boost or take away from something that has already been mastered to death.

Playing with eq on less futzed with cds is more desirable it would seem than on those cds that are really mucked up with crazy eq and other techniques in the mastering process.

 

I was glancing at the McIntosh (mcintoshlabs.com) website and came across this gem:

"The C220’s bypassable, low distortion Bass and Treble controls will prove invaluable for older recordings or may be bypassed when not needed."

I wonder if by "invaluable for older recordings" they were referring to how juiced up the modern remastered approach is? If so, it's a hoot!

 

Provided your tone controls are switchable so they are 'out of circuit' there's really no problem having them which it is on my NAD intergrated amp and some of your equipment.

The best I ever had was on the Quad 22 control unit: Bass and Treble controls plus selectable high frequency filtering with variable cut off slopes. Now that was invaluable back in the day for poor recordings or worn records.

For futzed sound Sgt Pepper is a great contender - it was mixed by admission of GM with jacked up high and low notes and compression - I don't think that's one we'll ever hear really 'flat'.

The main problem with tone controls is the 'abuse' of them - what one of you was talking about at Best Buy with that Boom and Tizz sound. Apart from sounding unnatural it places extra demands on the Power Amp (+3db of bass boost is a doubling of the low frequencies) and if the power amp can't give it it may damage your speakers.

Provided you use them only when strictly required for making small changes to the sound they can be useful but if the sound appears to be 'wrong' most of the time then maybe you should be looking elsewhere to cure it.

Regards,

 

I'm assuming that everyone here that is saying "flat" (as I'm certain that you know as well) is indicating that their stereo is set to what we've all come to know as a "flat" setting (no Eq, tone controls, etc...)

Obviously, each stereo's flat setting will sound somewhat different than another's based on all of the variables mentioned (as well as dozens of others).

If you're going to contend that there is only one exact "flat," or that perhaps there is no "flat," you're being rather pedantic for the sake of argument.

You could just as easily assert that all equalizers and tone controls are different so no two uses of them will ever sound alike.

If you like the way your stereo sounds when you use an Eq, or the treble or bass, then do it. I've actually liked the loudness button on a couple amps I've owned in the past, although I now prefer having an amp that I don't need to mess with any of the settings.

 

I have to revise my earlier post on this. I'm moving into a new apartment -- really a huge studio space, like a big concrete box with a loft built up top -- and I set up my system very quickly the other day just to have something to listen to while I arranged things. I knew that, because I don't have a sofa or any carpeting down, and because there are a lot of hard reflective surfaces to deal with, the sound wouldn't be great. Sure enough, I had turn down the treble considerably to get a tolerable sound. I will ultimately focus on room treatments to deal with some of this, but in this period where I'm still setting everything up, the treble knob is going to be my friend.

Jason

 

FLAT

 

Steve tweaks to hear what HE wants to hear. Then he makes it so we can also hear what he hears, assuming your system is flat and accurate. But, he can't be bothered to tweak things for lesser systems. He provided a place for us to list our equipment because he is interested in what we listen to music on, but what we listen on doesn't factor into his mastering, like with other mastering engineers.

 

I like my women curvy and my stereo adjustments flat.

 

My room is does not sound (or measure) FLAT and I'm sure most of your rooms don't either. Therefore, you are not hearing the sound as flat; more likely, you've got some pretty significant bass peaks and nulls. I use a digital parametric EQ for those peaks to have a relatively flat response in my room. A fancy and very effective tone control if you want to call it that. On the other side of the spectrum i like to roll off the top end with a digital EQ since my room is rather reflective. Room treatments would be a better option but my wife would not tolerate that.

 

They are nice to have in order to compensate for some of the not so well recorded music.

 

Yeah things like that make me shake my head. As though old = always inferior and new = always perfect... puh!

 

Well, not necessarily. If you are playing, say, 1950s LPs (which certainly are "older" recordings), the records may or may not not conform to the RIAA characteristic. Even if they do, records from that era not uncommonly were mastered to be "hot" on top, probably because so many speakers of that era were a bit weak in the treble. 78s, of course, are even less likely to conform to the RIAA curve (read: they never do, as far as I know). In either case, but particularly the latter, a judicious application of tone controls can work a world of improvement for casual listening, although combining a preamp that can bypass RIAA (i.e., that is truly flat!) with a good EQ is preferable for "serious" sessions (say, dubbing to tape or CD).

Remasterings, if done properly, address these issues for modern equipment. Unfortunately, they all to often add problems of their own, such as overenthusiastic application of noise reduction (read: any at all ). That's why, 99 44/100% of the time, I'd rather play an original and do my own compensation for any sonic peculiarities.