Tone controls - old school liability, or sonic salvation?

I was thinking more along the lines of people who spreadsheet their tone control settings
to go along with every track on all the albums in their collection. That goes along with
changing VTA for every record with a 0.01mm difference in thickness. The point being...
maybe tweaking something down to the individual song or album misses the larger picture.

 

I agree. They're just salt and pepper shakers as far as I'm concerned.

 

Sounds like something I would spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over...good thing my system doesn't have tone controls!

 

Always been a fan of tone and balance and mono switches, but only about 40% of what I listen to is new audiophile recordings. Tone controls are godsend for poorer recordings and things like Audio books and radio

 

some EQ made a lackluster pressing of Nursery Cryme by Genesis sound quite good!!

 

So can I run a cable from the preamp out of an integrated amp into an EQ and then back into an Aux In?

What (used and somewhat easily available) EQ would you recommend?

I'd like to try it.

 

Early Marantz receivers, at least my 2238b, have a midrange control in addition to the usual treble and bass.

 

I won't own an amp without them. I need to turn the bass down on everything and I like to boost the treble a bit. My Marantz gear has Source Direct as well as tone controls, including a mid on my PM8004. I rarely play on source direct or bypass on my gear because there's never a time I don't want to reduce bass. After dealing with audio gear for 50 years now, I believe I know what I like and what I want.

 

well at that time I had an old Marantz receiver, which had a 5 or 8 band EQ built into it

it was kind of an ugly amp but it sounded great

 

If you need to turn the bass down on every single thing you listen to then that sounds like a speaker issue. What do you do when you listen to a dub album? Turn down the most prominent instrument?

 

Well, golly, I don't listen to dub. It's not a speaker "issue", it's a preference issue; I don't care for low frequencies.

 

I've used source direct for years on my really basic mid-fi system.
Material with good sound quality really sounds great this way.
That said I've ditched or sidelined a lot of good music becuase of
mediocre sound quality & from another recent thread on tone controls
I just decided to play around a little with the simple bass / treble on
my Marantz & it has allowed me to enjoy the otherwise nonexistent
music - granted it doesn't sound great but its worth playing once in a
while now.

My old NAD has 3 band notches for bass & treble with bypass & I think
with a similar mid I could be pretty happy.

 

As I posted in another thread, I really like the way it's done on my vintage Luxman:



Edit: This particular setting I used yesterday when listening to one of the old Bowie Ryko CDs.

 

Although I have Tone Controls on my Marantz PM-KI-Pearl integrated I don't use them. Instead, I've adjusted the tone controls on the back of my Genesis G7.1 speakers to suit the conditions of my room and personal preference, which is a slight Bass Gain and a lowering of the treble. I have not found any need to adjust the controls any further.

 

If your room or your system needs help ( most ) it's tone controls to the rescue.
But there are a bandaid solution.

 

Agreed. Just remember folks, every person who has mastered a recording in your collection has had his (or her) hands on your tone controls.

 

Don't like tone controls. My pre-amp has them, but fortunately has a bypass. I have never used the tone controls at all.

 

Could be the best solution for the dreaded smiley face EQ on those old MoFi Beatles albums.

 

Tone controls can be useful in some environments, like the car or with portable players. Otherwise, they are kind of useless. Why? They don't provide precise adjustments like a parametric EQ does, as the octaves are too wide. Then there's the relationship with the volume's Fletcher-Munson curve...

 

Lounge is working on this.

 

Cool. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

I am the "they"

 

If something is overly bright I am turning down the treble.
Result...it won't be as bright anymore.
I'm not worried about the Flethcher Munson curve.

 

Don't use tone controls and never found much of a need for them either...

On the other hand removing tone controls - like bypassing the ones on a Dynaco PAS - really improved the sound quality.