On tone controls

Have not even thought about tone controls for well on 30 years, if a system is well balanced they just complicate listening.

 

Same discussion as always. Folks like it the way they like it.

I have a buddy who has tone controls but he wouldn't move them from center if you paid him. Listening to music at his casa it sounds wonderful, he has a fine system but on some occasions, a recording will be anemic in the bass, and I would not hesitate to adjust it to increase the musical pleasure. You'd have to tie him up to get it done though!

To each his own.

 

I mostly listen flat. Sometimes I do a slight treble reduction for an overly bright digital Classical recording mostly from the early days of digital.

 

If you listen to one of these it will change your mind about EQ. This unit is like a breath of mountain air.
VT-5 - D. W. Fearn

 

I think the treble control is the more used of the two tone controls. If you are experienced at tweaking you can achieve an apparent treble boost or cut without resorting to a treble control, but it is faster, less trouble & more convenient. What I do not think has even been mentioned is that some tone control circuits are less degrading (if any) of sound than others. I have experimented with amps that have a tone control defeat switch and have been unable to detect any degradation at all with it switched back in. Each recording studio monitors recordings using a totally different chain of equipment, including speakers so anyone who believes they are hearing the recording exactly as it was meant by simply by putting your tone controls on flat is kidding themselves, except for the one in a million chance that they are using the exact same equipment as the studio was using when making the recording. Different room acoustics are another reason to have tone controls, including a bass control. Modern preamps usually omit tone controls but they need an extra interconnect cable vs. a good integrated amp. Even a pretty good interconnect will degrade transparency, openness etc. many times more than a decent tone control circuit will. Bad thinking on many peoples part.

 

The Loki has been a fabulous edition to my current set up. Anyone thinking about getting one should just do it.

 

Hey OP ! My variable crossover tone controls, the loudness buttons on BOTH my receiver and my amp, my equalizer, my dynamic enhancer, and my aural exciter, want to shout ¨BOLLOCKS¨

Try to listen to my black metal demos or my many punk soundboard recordings without any tonal compensation and then tell me again I don't need them

 

My amp has a "tone defeat" button, and most of the time it's engaged.
It is nice to have the option to switch them in, even if it's a rare event.

 

I'm guilty of starting a thread on this topic a while ago.
My story is that I knew no better than to have the bass and treble cranked all the way up. Once I realised how heinous this was, there followed literally months of adjusting. I tried it gradually; I went cold turkey. Some albums sounded fine from the start of this process, and some just sounded terrible: tinny, grating, muffled. However, I'm there now, zeroed out, flat as you like. Even the slightest increase of treble sounds artificial to me these days.

 

There aren't any on my stereo and I'm happy with it.

 

They're also not mixed and mastered with consumer grade graphic equalizers with unknown curves in the hands of amateurs in mind.

 

We use tubes and different cartridges/decks if we need to change the tone.

 

Yes you can.....it's a great device and now it's permanent in my system. It takes up less space than my very good Audio Control EQ.

Considering the array of parameters affecting an audio signal entering my physical space, I need all the help I can get to make music happen.

 

The defeat switch works as it should, the Loki is an excellent, and to me, essential product.

 

My system is an imbalanced mess. Unison Research Unico Primo, Tannoy XT8F, Oppo 105, Kimber Kables....Loki to the rescue.

 

If I need more bass I turn up the volume. If I need more mid-range I turn the volume up once more.

More high-end?

I light the bowl and inhale.

 

I've owned and use an integrated amp without tone controls for 10+ years. I don't miss them at all, but I would never knock anyone who uses them. What works for me does not necessarily work for someone else.

 

A couple of years ago, I purchased a McIntosh integrated amp with treble and bass tone controls. Occasionally I use the treble control to take the edge off overly bright digital recordings.

 

Historically, tone controls were included because each record manufacturer used different eq curves when cutting records. Some amp's were either built with a range of switchable eq curve controls (like found on preamps designed for 78rpm reproduction). Most amp manufacturers chose their preferred phono eq curve, and the user was stuck with that choice. This meant that many records,pressed with different phono eq curves, were played using an amp with the wrong eq curve, resulting them sounding bright or dull, with heavy or light bottom-end. Tone controls were included on the amp to compensate for the eq curves. Once the RIAA standard was introduced, record mastering and hardware playback was standardised, so tone controls were included for playback of non-riaa records. Australian World Record Club albums were often licensed from companies that still did not adhere to the RIAA standard, so the album sleeves had "clock-face dial" graphics so the owner could mark the preferred tone control setting for each record.

With RIAA standard for phono reproduction and CDs not having encoded eq, tone controls are redundant. I have found that as I upgraded from low-quality to higher-quality my use of controls diminished, and haven't noticed the absence of them in preamps I've owned for the last few decades. With the exception of having a disk that was poorly-mastered, and sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to add some compensation.

 

Neither will I. Sometimes they are very necessary. Not every recording is perfect. Not every room is perfect. And sometimes music you and I want to hear is sonically deficient.

 

Your brain/ears decide what sound you like, so by virtue of that, you are the “tone controller” and every equipment you get is a “tone control”, if you really think about it.

 

Got ‘em but never use ‘em. I’m a stubborn purist, I guess.

 

my preamp doesn't have tone controls. i have all kinds of dsp and digital eq's available via my setup but i run everything direct. no processing. but i use the eq on my phone/neutron and in the car. funny, that.

 

My perception of “weird” could certainly be the type of shelf EQ my amp uses for tone controls, and better designs are available, I’m sure. In the car or listening to my iPod with headphones, EQ is absolutely necessary. However, in my home system, my experience is that music sounds open and natural, and I just seem to lose some of that if I use the tone controls.