Life without tone controls ... it sucks!

I wasn't going to wade into this pool, but....for me it depends on which listening rig I'm using.

I have 2 setups that I never, ever use the tone controls on, both have them but have true bypass switching/direct button for removing them from the circuit. I've never felt the need to engage them on these 2 rigs, both are fairly revealing setups and my most expensive ones.

I have several other rigs throughout the house and with most of those I'm either using the tone controls or the loudness button. Now, these are my less expensive setups, but they are also ones that don't get played very loud, more for background listening and they are certainly not in rooms setup specifically for sound nor are they ideally positioned.

I think all those factors are what drives me to use them in these less expensive setups more so than their cost, but I'm sure that may play into it also.

 

I like the fact a few of my older receivers I use in casual listening sessions have 2 phono inputs, and 2 of them actually have a loading selector. That would certainly confuse modern users. Loading, what are we loading?

 

Mcintosh preamps (new and vintage) generally always have tone controls, phono stage for MM and MC, variable loading for cartridge settings, and a mono button. And don't sound too bad either!

 

I generally listen with my tone controls bypassed. Sometimes I don't. If I sometimes feel the need to adjust sonics with tone controls, something must be wrong with my system?

What a laugh.

 

Absolutely. Just recently entered the wonderful world of McIntosh and I'm loving it. I love being able to switch between mono and stereo, and being able to adjust cartridge loading straight from the remote control!

 

How do you know that the lack of tone controls gets you any closer? I'd venture that a quality 'flat' amp with tone controls is closer to the truth than much of the heavily voiced gear that passes for 'high end'.

 

m It gets me closer to the sound of the source recording. That's my goal! My goal is not to recreate the subjective approximation of the live sound with the gear.

 

I only find myself wishing i had a treble control when i am listening to vinyl mastered in the digital domain, which perhaps isnt done as well as it could be. This is about 20 odd percent maybe. However, i am buying much better mastered vinyl now and its much rarer that i am dissatisfied with the sound in any way.

 

Well if my system didn't sound right one day, I'd presume there was something wrong. Seems logical to me and I wouldn't be laughing.

 

I'm in the no tone control camp. I prefer listening to the music as close to source as possible, even if it means putting up with less than stellar recordings.

When I first got into Hi Fi I did use tone controls a lot, with a particular fondness for the loundness button, and at one stage even incorporated one of those slide control analog equalisers. But that was back in the early 1980s and as my stereo and choice of album mastering improved I grew out of it.

These days I don't like bass and treble controls as only rarely does it make the music sound better but rather (to my ears) it introduces a bias across a broad range of frequencies. Parametric equalisers are better as they have more precision than the simple blunt bass and treble controls. However, unless you are correcting for an inherent deficiency in the stereo or room acoustics, it can be a pain the *** adjusting these type of equalisers to each individual album or indeed, track.

Funnily enough, I was using my Bluesound streamer the other day which had a recent software update that incorporated bass and treble controls. I had a bit of fun for a while changing the settings as I played the music but in the end I always found myself going back to defeat for serious listening.

 

Believe it or not, this is all too common these days. I love a well done steak and cannot stomach a medium rare. Yet, unlike 20 years ago, it is difficult to get a properly cooked well done steak at restaurants. They often look at you with dismay for not eating steak the way "it's supposed to be eaten - medium rare" and end up serving something that is still not well done or cremated. The My Chef Rules type of shows don't help either. I am told by many food critics (self styled or otherwise) that one just needs to get used to medium rare and then you'd never go back to well done. Similar argument for flat compared to coloured sound I suppose, so until I get to like medium rare steaks I won't criticise anyone for preferring tone bias with their music!

 

I guess I am in the "tone control camp". Sometimes I like to emphasize certain parts of the recording. My New Denon integrated allows me to adjust bass and treble but my old Marantz and Sansui receivers have multiple tone control options. Last night I boosted Phil Lesh's bass on the recording I was playing-harmless fun. Tone controls give one more options and they can be cut out for direct if one wishes to do so. No harm no foul.

 

But why would you automatically blame the system for the occasional CD that doesn't sound right to your ears? It reminds me of an old lady I met recently that tried to return a new television because it didn't work. Come to find out she hadn't paid her cable bill in months and they shut her off!

 

It's impossible for me to remember life with controls. The cause for what are frustrating CDs seems to be mainly down to compression and what I hear there is a distortion of instruments, perhaps tone controls do help when distortion is present.

 

Even the best systems might not sound right if the sonics arent there (ie on the cd, record etc) in the first place. Ive listened to records that blow me away and others that sound like a badly mastered cd. That has nothing to do with the system sounding bad, its what you're playing on it that sounds bad!

 

I just don't experience that many bad mastered CDs, in fact I'm possibly the last person who should comment on this as I was initially amazed by the number of complaints here about EQ.

 

Perhaps you listen to the same kind of music all the time if you think it all sounds fine without ever making any tonal adjustments. I listen to everything from collections of primitively-recorded African music to exquisitely recorded classical guitar and audiophile jazz reissues, well recorded and poorly recorded rock, and everything in between. The treble response varies from way over the top to practically non-existent, and I doubt that was "what the recording engineer intended" in every case. It does not mean something is wrong with my system.

The fact is that mistakes are sometimes made, both in the original recording and in masterings and remasterings. Making minor tonal adjustments to correct these does not mean there is something wrong with the playback system. What is laughable is your assertion that is does.

As has been said numerous times and in different ways in this thread, if you never feel the need for tone controls, more power to you. But to project from this that those who feel differently must have something wrong with their playback chain is, with all due respect, arrogant and just plain wrong.

 

I was thinking that too and I wonder if the problem is people's rooms. Some recordings are definitely brighter than others. If the bass on the recording happens to match a room null or mode then the recording would be unbearable and the listener might think it needs fixing when the real culprit could be the room.

I don't run into that many recordings that need help. Yes, some are bright but bearable. I have more issues with squashed dynamics and the recent trend of distorted vocals, a la Black Keys, that I can't stand.

 

I apologise if that's how it came across but i was only commenting about my system and my experience. I listen to a fairly wide range of music and I'm pretty sure my friends don't even know I've no tone controls, there's only one person who's ever asked me to alter the EQ and that was to turn up the bass and I've got a REL Stadium III.

 

Tone controls are more fun than no tone controls. And you don't have to use them, but having the option is great.

 

I do not need tone controls, except in very rare cases where the mastering is seriously flawed in terms of tonality

I now do a lot of music playback with files from the computer. If a CD needs tone correction, I rip it and use the Equalizer built into foobar2000 during playback of the files.

BTW, if you like fun, you can do almost anything with the range of sound processing plugins available for software players. But this has nothing to do with high fidelity.

 

You miss the point but I'm not going to try to change your mind. Enjoy what you enjoy.

Using tone controls on a Macintosh has everything to do with high fidelity. I have no interest in software players or ripping and using equalizers, etc.

 

A revealing system will make a bad recording sound bad and a good recording sound good. If the system is not revealing all will sound similar.

There are too many poor recordings/masterings out there that I find that I can improve upon with some tone adjustments so they remain enjoyable to my ear. My system is very revealing and my requirements for enjoyable listening are such that without tone controls I would simply not enjoy listening to some of the music out there that I want to listen to (crap in/crap out) - I would have to take it off my playlist. Now there is only so much you can do to a dish before it gets ruined. You definitely cannot make chicken salad out of chicken s%#t!

Some recordings are simply so bad that no adjustment can be made to make it listenable for me. These recordings don't get played anymore, which is sad if you are a fan. In prior, less revealing systems it was harder to tell them apart and the play list was larger then.

If it is blurry (less revealing system) the beauty is less appreciated, and the ugliness is not so ugly. If your vision is 20/20 you can discern things much better. If your vision is 20/100, all is blurred and beauty and beast are not so far apart.

I think some get the tone controls/bad system backwards. A bad system will definitely need tone controls to correct it, and it will need them for all recordings. A good system will allow you to easily discern between the good and bad, and you can either listen to them as is, dump the bad so you only have good, or modify the bad ones to make them at least palatable.

It is the similar to someone with the task of making a recording with all tracks done and no chance to remake any of them. You have to modify them to the best of your ability with the tools you have and gitrdun.

 

I hit 'bypass' most of the time. But as a vinyl newbie listening to a Shure M97xe, which is a tad, uh, laid back, I sometimes add just a smidgen of treble, to bring things back to life for some recordings. I'm sure I'll be experimenting with other cartridges, over time, but I'm glad to be in a position to finesse the sonics when necessary.

 

As I said my only issues with tone controls are that they often are so basic in effect to not tweak the sound in a way that pleases me. I do have a vintage Soundcraftsmen Rp-2215 that sits on a tape loop. I use it rarely but it is there none the less. In the end no one needs be critical of another persons preferences in gear or it's use.