Tone Controls etc. Any one use them? If so,why?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Pete Norman, Mar 19, 2015.

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  1. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I'm going to be "that guy" and say that we fairly recently did this same thread.
     
  2. bluemooze

    bluemooze Senior Member

    Location:
    Frenchtown NJ USA
    Right you are. :agree:
     
  3. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    No, we just want to hear the recordings as it comes off the media.
     
  4. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    There can also be a difference between what the engineer and masterer want you to hear and what the artist wants you to hear. The best example I can think of is if you read the liner notes for "In Utero" by Nirvana there are precise tone controls listed that Kurt Cobain wants you to listen at. The final product was marred by DGC because they insisted upon a more radio friendly sound like "Nevermind" was.
     
    Burning Tires likes this.
  5. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    I use the tone controls on my Decware Torii Mk III frequently and don't feel they mar the sound. They really help me to enjoy less than stellar recordings (the bulk of my collection--I don't just collect great recordings).

    They are not your "average joe" tone controls. Here is how the tone controls on my Decware Torii Mk III operate, from the owner's manual:

    The treble and bass controls for each channel are less than conventional. The treble control is a simple shunt to ground meaning it's not in the signal path. It was designed to roll off the top end frequencies should they become too loud. There is no “flat” position of this control because it changes from one loudspeaker to another. It has to be set by ear. One way to do this is to simply turn it all the way down (counter clockwise) and then slowly raise it until you're satisfied with the amount of treble.

    The Bass Control is not a frequency adjustment as the name would suggest. Instead what this control does is allow you to adjust how much interaction your loudspeaker has with the amplifier. This works by placing the voice coil of your loudspeaker in parallel with the cathode resistor of the input stage in this amplifier. As the impedance rises the gain of the amplifier is reduced in real time as the music plays. The control simply lets you vary how much this happens. The result varies widely from one speaker to another so again there is no such thing as a “flat” position on the control. In fact it can even work backwards with some speakers, so you simply have to listen and adjust. I usually start with the Bass Control fully counter clockwise and experiment from there.
     
    SandAndGlass and Drew D. Saur like this.
  6. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
    I haven't used a tone control or eq in close to 20 years.

    I have a plethora of amplifiers (solid state and vacuum tube) that I've built and I'd never consider tone control, because then all your hearing is the tone control, not the amp. Anyone who makes a even a minor mod to their system (power chord, interconnect, etc) and then makes a change in their tone control isn't hearing the mod. They are hearing the tone control. Someone who claims they prefer the sound of triodes to pentodes and then says "but I had to make this little adjustment to my tone control over here afterwards" just lost all credibility with me because there is no way they can know at that point what it is in the signal path that caused what they hear.
     
  7. The Good Guy

    The Good Guy Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Credibility??? I don't get it . Music is there to enjoy not endure. Every single recording in the world will have different acoustics from each other , yours & my listening room. Most of the time I don't need to adjust but it's time to subtly taper frequencies to suit yr mood , time of day etc. The day I stop listening to Rolling Stones Aftermath because its not as well recorded as Bothers In Arms is the day I need to go to the funny farm.
     
    rtrt, Drew D. Saur, formu_la and 2 others like this.
  8. nm_west

    nm_west Forum Resident

    Location:
    Abq. NM. USA
    Those little adjustments are for their benefit, not yours.
    I'm pretty sure most people who use tone controls don't give a rat's ass whether you find them credible or not.
     
  9. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    I find it rather difficult to criticize other people's choices in how they set up their stereo when I'm just reading a message board and not in the same room as they are, listening to the same equipment through the same speakers with the same room acoustics.
     
    SandAndGlass, rtrt, bluemooze and 3 others like this.
  10. tootull

    tootull Looking through a glass onion

    Location:
    Canada
    So, you want to CONTROL the situation.



    Sorry, couldn't resist.
    I use tone defeat. :)
     
  11. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
    Doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I seem to have hurt yours.
     
    Grant likes this.
  12. Metralla

    Metralla Joined Jan 13, 2002

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    The "credibility" was referring to the ability of the listener to assess the impact of the change. It was quite clear.
     
  13. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I am not in any position to CONTROL what people do, and I am hardly doing that by pointing out that we have done this thread before, several times, in fact.
     
  14. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    [​IMG]

    this is the problem, tone controls have been misappropriated by the "Beats" community.
     
    The Pinhead likes this.
  15. TVC15

    TVC15 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    A65 and A85 are totally different pre-amp designs.
     
  16. tootull

    tootull Looking through a glass onion

    Location:
    Canada
    Lighten up. I'm joking.
     
  17. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    If you had been targeted for as long as I have on this forum you would also have trouble trying to decide when someone is joking.
     
  18. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    The problem for me with making adjustments in to control is that it is a never-ending process where you are essentially filtering the signal. I am not going to sit there with each recoding and decide which levels I feel need to be adjusted to make it optimal for my preferences. Back in the day I would fiddle with a graphic EQ and never really be sure if I liked it better one way or the other, I would always end up with it flat across the board. At the end of the day I'm twisting knobs or lifting faders rather than listening to music.

    Then we got to the day of presets in receivers. That is really all that "jazz club" "dance hall" "stadium" or "rock concerts were, just QE presets. They day comes where "Pure Direct" feels like the right choice.

    To each their own. I went though a process and settled on "Pure Direct", Everyone should follow their own as well without judgment. At a certain level you chase tone control with cables, amp, speakers, cartridges and room treatments. We all dig tone control.
     
  19. tootull

    tootull Looking through a glass onion

    Location:
    Canada
    I understand your situation. You can look upon me as a friend. Cheers.
     
    Grant likes this.
  20. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    and dare I say choosing to listen to vinyl playback (or not) is in exercise in tone control.
     
  21. misterdecibel

    misterdecibel Bulbous Also Tapered

    This has been going on for decades before there even was a "Beats community".
     
    Dennis0675 likes this.
  22. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    Some people here are really over-thinking the relatively simple process of

    1. Gee, this record is awfully bright
    2. (turns down Treble knob a bit)
     
  23. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    Absolutely. This proclivity caters to the demographic that purchases Beats. Beats did not create the trend to overdrive bass or those that prefer "feeling" the bass to the point of distortion. Tone controls did make that possible.
     
  24. bluemooze

    bluemooze Senior Member

    Location:
    Frenchtown NJ USA
    Did the who-has-an-equalizer thread go away?
     
  25. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    MA6600 owner here also, sometimes +2db on digital, "top dead center" or bypass on vinyl.
     
    5-String likes this.
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