I Used Tone Controls Yesterday.

That's some redonkulous dedicated listening right there.

...I kinda want.

 

Oh I'm aware there's no perfect sound, in terms of what's on the record. We all know, I think, that a system will sound radically different, for instance, if you remove all of the furniture from your listening room. (Strenuous exercise - don't try this unless you're fit). But I feel I have to stop messing around with the sound somewhere, and tone controls are where the line is, for me. As to knowing what a record really sounds like, for me it's a gut thing. Any serious music listener/audiophile will have experienced that epiphany of hearing a well known record after a change in their system (one component, or more than one). Over here, I'v e heard the word rightness used, in this respect. In the early days of CD, some audiophiles said digital simply didn't sound 'right'.When yuo hear a record on a really good system, it's simply 'right', and latterly, this can apply to CD, at least for some people.
This is irrespective of 'too much bass' , 'a fat middle', 'too much top', etc.

PS: how about a poll re tone controls?

 

kinda?

 

I see nothing wrong with using EQ or tone controls, but mt SET amp doesn't have any, and I have never felt the need for them. It is extremely rare for me to listen to an album (I listen to mostly vinyl) where I feel there needs to be some serious tonal adjustments. I just can't justify in my mind adding another circuit in the chain for those rare cases.

But I don't think tone controls are a "non-audiophile" thing, just a personal preference.

 

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=110810&highlight=

 

In other words, your gear is very well designed, but, for those who don't believe that better gear actually makes a night/day difference, sure, use tone controls if it makes you feel better.

I thought SH ended this thread several pages ago?

 

Yeah, funniest thread I've read in hardware/music in some time, .

 

So I am understanding you correctly are you referring to your own work or are you saying that you believe with a parametric eq. and studio tools you can undue the pressed recording containing compression/normalization?

 

Quite enjoyable.

 

Can be more fun too!

 

I am praying for you.

 

I am officially on the hunt for a parametric EQ now.

Steve, I'm going to hold you to your statement that you'll show us how to use 'em.

ccm

 

Look for the EAR one or the Cello one. Both said to be fantastic.

http://www.mercenary.com/ear825dualma.html

 

Using a parametric EQ is really quite simple once you understand how it works. Basically, you select the frequency you wish to cut or boost, and cut or boost accordingly. The thing that distinguishes the parametric is an additional control known as Q, or slope. If you imagine a frequency response graph with a flat line, let's say you wish to cut -6dB at 300Hz using a bell curve ("peak") EQ slope. You are creating a dip in that flat line, and the steepness, or slope, of the dip is your Q parameter. The higher the Q, the more specific the adjustment to that individual frequency. The lower the Q, the broader the slope of the adjustment, and the more neighboring frequencies you are affecting. When you are eliminating one frequency or band of frequencies entirely, this is called a notch filter. When you eliminate one frequency and all of its mathematically related harmonics, this is called a comb filter. If you're wanting to boost or cut all frequencies above or below a specific point by a specific amount, for example boosting everything above 15kHz by 3dB, this is called a shelving EQ. Tone knobs are employed in this way, which is why they can help the problem, but may not totally address it.

The typical parametric EQ allows for adjustment of several distinct frequencies or bands of frequencies, using different EQ "slopes". They're frequently used in the studio during mixdown, especially if you follow the Bob Clearmountain notion of "frequency carving", ie giving each instrument in the mix a specific frequency "neighborhood" so as to avoid phase issues, etc. The result is that individual tracks soloed on the console might not sound great, but together they do. For example, many of the mid-bass frequencies found in a recorded kick drum (around the 300Hz region), frequencies which might butt up against those same ones found in a bass guitar track and cause phase cancellations, are removed using a parametric EQ. This allows the kick drum's attack to be preserved, along with the deep tones of the bass guitar.

Obviously Steve can break it down much more thoroughly, but that's the basic gist of parametric EQ's.

 

A good parametric EQ that can be brought in or out as needed is the right way to do things, but it isn't going to happen as long as we are in a -10, unbalanced high impedance world. We are, unfortunately not going to change just like we are not going to 230V balanced power even though every house built since WWII has it coming in already. These things, like the yucchy RCA connector itself (yes, even though Art Collins used it for most all his RF work on the S/Line) are with us whether we like it or not.

Just like the guitar world isn't giving up the 1/4" "phone"(sic) plug for both guitar leads and speaker cables.

Peace in the Middle East and a helicopter in every backyard will happen long before these things change.

That said: tweeter attenuators on speakers and the kind of tone stack I have on my reissue Marantz/VAC 7C (yeah, I bought a real one finally, after building several clones) are way better than nothing. Between them I can make most of the records I listen to acceptable to me. And when they are out of circuit they are out, to my satisfaction anyway.

 

I enjoyed the spirit of your rant

What do you mean by a "-10" world? I understood the other stuff.

I have tried using balanced power conditioners, granted, only ones that yield +/- 60V, not the +/- 110 that enters the house and gets used for the heavy appliances. The balanced conditioners never sounded as good as the non-balanced ones that I use now. That could be the conditioners, I grant. But until I hear differently my jury is out on the benefits of balanced power.

I agree about the phone jack for instrument-amp connections, and particularly the amp-speaker situation. Would be cool to mod some of those and hear what happens.

What connector do you favor then, if you hate the RCA so much?

I must say, 110V standard power and RCA connectors have a good STUDIO track record. We must be able to make it work, because those vintage 1950's studios managed to record some pretty high fidelity stuff. Unless they weren't using RCA's, I wouldn't know.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to do better. We should ALWAYS try to do better. But if we have heard great results that use these connectors and standard US power, maybe the connectors aren't as much to blame as we may think.

ccm

 

Wonderful post, Phallumontis. A great primer for those of us who haven't used one. I have only ever used graphic EQs, and only cheap ones while I was growing up. I pitched them years ago.

That explains the terms and the concepts of what a parametric does. In another thread sometime soon we should try to summarize how to decide what frequencies and Q's to apply for specific circumstances.

I'm sure this has been summarized before, but sometimes it's nice to re-discuss, to shed new light.

ccm

 

As far as I know the old studios had everything hardwired to longframe jack patch panels with either screw terminals or XLR or Tuchel connectors on the equipment end. I'm sure exceptions exist.

The studios used two wire 115 volt standard power with a separate ground wire back then, I'm sure. In Europe and UK they used 220 or 240 volt standard power at 50 Hz. All the old Ampex and RCA manuals show two wire with a small cap to equipment ground, it being the assumption in those days the engineers really were.

I think the trend to balanced power began in the eighties. Perhaps Mr. Hoffman or other current active pros know what is current practice (no pun intended.) R_E_P magazine back then carried a great number of articles on this.

The advantage to 230V balanced utility power is that you get rid of a lot of DC offset issues as well as lower I2R losses. It IS 230V after all.

The Brits refer to ground as earthed and the neutral as earthy. They are, here as there, connected at one point and ONLY at one point. I have seen a ground to neutral short/loop cause a power cord on a Tek scope to actually start smoking and melt the insulation. When disconnected there was 5.5V differential. That cord had to be carrying a LOT of current to do that!

At any rate I've given up the fight and conceded in the way that the Dvorak keyboard nuts pretty well have. It is what it is. I know Brit bike people obsessed with the shifter being on the wrong side by US fiat, and people who own Citroens have heard my rant on the perfidy of the French in getting the colors of the hydraulics exactly wrong. It's otiose now.

 

Wow. A great explination. Thanks for taking the time.

I think I've decided to not use tone controls in my listening room at home (with my equipment that doesn't offer any) and use them on my intergrated at the office, where they are available. Obviously less critical listening there anyway.

This thread has been so much fun. And informative, too.

 

Actually many are not searching for "Neutral", but are merely thinking it makes them look better to say they are "Above" using tone controls. As if their system is so utterly perfect sounding "as is", even though we ALL know recordings vary hugely in how they sound.......

Its simply a silly audiophile thing, with the typical excuses being "Noise and distortion", even though we all know almost all recordings have more noise and distortion than most average tone control circuits ever add.

In theory its bad to use tone controls, but in reality..................

 

...............And have acoustically perfect rooms, speakers, and totally flat hearing.....

Let alone, how many recordings are even close to perfect.

I think a good bit of this "anti tone control" thing smacks of the "Ferrari in the driveway, being waxed, that when it goes out, it never goes over 3000 RPM"

 

I come at it from the opposite point of view. I have no theoretical bias against using tone controls at all--anything that makes the sound more pleasing is good. If only tone controls actually did that. My experience is that they don't.

 

Ive had good to great luck at them making things sound better, but im not sure why some cant find a way to improve sound with a moderate use of a tone control. Although some tone controls on some equipment are hinged at bad points, that I understand, ive always seemed to own stuff that they tend to either reduce or boost "only" at the far extremes.


Honestly, most times I rarely use them, but on the other hand Ive never seen the big issues some seem to find with subtracting a couple decibles in the treble and so on. I feel many seem to simply give up and say "Oh well" I dont know what im doing...just leave them flat.....??
Ive extensively used Parametric EQ and its amazing what can be done with some pink noise and some patience.

 

What Kinks record is it? A lot of their material, particularly the stuff done before 1970, was just not recorded well, there are limits to what you should expect.

 

http://www.jlaudio.com/header/Suppo...ualizer/Tutorial:+Parametric+Equalizer/287545

Here's a pretty neat interactive and graphical representation of a parametric equalizer. Playing around with the settings helped me to understand how these work. This requires a FLASH layer.