I Used Tone Controls Yesterday.

Funny award.

 

Word!

 

My God, tone controls?! I'm sorry David, but that's enough. You're mother and I want you to find your own place.

 

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I think I'm gonna use again tonight.

 

Do it. Trust you ears. If it sounds good to you then it's right.

 

My playback has been clean for 5 years now. My music has its breath of life back.

ccm

 

What about if I promise to stop before I need glasses?

 

Amen to that. I don't understand why someone would sit and listen to a recording that needs some sort of adjustment, and refuse to make that adjustment based on some audiophile "principle" that you should suffer through your music collection. "The bass guitar on this recording makes me want to shoot myself, but that's the recording, and I should learn to live with it." Please!

EQ choices were made during the tracking, mixing and mastering of any given album, and those choices were dependent on the ears of the people making them. Given that our ears are all different, it makes sense that some adjustments by the end user may be desired. It's true, you should always seek out the mastering you like best so as to avoid these issues, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Do what sounds best to you.

 

A warped girlfriend is better than a warped record!!!

 

Serious question: I can't tell the difference between having the tone controls on and flat and having them off. Should I be able to or is that difference something that gets compromised by having those controls available to me in the first place?

 

My last pieces of equipment with defeatable tone controls. . . well I probably couldn't hear the difference with the tone controls in and flat and switched out either. Theoretically having them defeated is better, and if you're not using them, switch them out is my advice.

 

exactly, whatever works, at times I wish my headphone amps had some tone controls

 

Maybe it's just like how much Salt and Pepper you prefer on your dinner? None, a little or loads....but it's your taste so enjoy it!

 

with my NAD integrated I can't tell the difference on a pair of HD800's - Flat tone settings = bypass to my ears, I'm sure the difference is measurable but I sure can't hear it, it's probably .001 db or something like that

 

work that knob !!

..lets us know if you get hairy palms

 

If you continue to turn those knobs from the naught position some of this may need to be applied.

 

What is a "flat" sound?

 

Perhaps?

 

I was wondering how on earth this thread could go on for so long.

Now I see!

 

We gave it a little boost at about 16kHz

 

^ Nice

 

There will be another thread on tone controls in about 6 months and we'll hear the same arguments. I don't use them but for those that do, please feel free to continue.

 

Let's face it...mastering is far from perfect...all sorts of problems especially with normalization, compression....why be stuck with that sound ? While I don't subscribe to componentry with tone controls I do use a pro parametric eq via a tape loop in my preamp we needed or desired. The key is to get one that is not a sonic degradation of your system components. I found one such eq...

Millennia Media NSEQ-4 parametric eq. It's frickin' awesome.

http://www.mil-media.com/nseq-4.html#ph



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM_DYmNyEpo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1NJt3sedSY

Here is the setup in my room. I keep it on a trolley so it's right by my side at the listeing position.



I will note that I use much higher end cables for send and recieve in the tape loop

 

Ha. $4600 MSRP.

Nice EQ, but not the reasonably priced suggestion we were quite looking for.

That's up in Massenberg territory.

Ah, it WAS the GML unit that has the colored knobs:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GML8200

The other one I was stalking was made by Sontec, I believe.

All pro units, I'm afraid. Very cool, but what's a thrifty listener to do?

ccm