Tone Controls, why not!

Sure, and if it sounds good, it's a plus ! I'd love for Dr Fine to play Summoning's ¨Lugburz¨ or Darkthrone's ¨Transilvanian Hunger¨ through his mega-bucks rigs, and tell me it sounded ¨great¨

 

I'm not sure that's coming across very well.

 

Maybe a little humility on his side would help him understand listener needs and do a proper job next time, so that no one needs to boost his recordings?

 

I own two vinyl versions of Kraftwerk's Man-Machine: first is an original 1978 LP and the second is its digital remaster done by the band themselves in 2009.
The original has a very pleasant vintage analog sound with clear highs, just lacks bass a little.
The remaster, among other things, has rolled-off highs and boosted bass. Boosted too much to my taste. So it seems that the band's vision on how this album should sound has changed after 31 years. Or maybe they just tried to make it sound similar to the modern commercial records in order to please a wider audience, who may not own the best audio equipment?
Anyway, I prefer listening to the original 1978 LP with the bass slightly boosted by my Schiit Loki tone controls. This way it sounds perfect to me.

I use tone controls only in special situations like the above. It happens 2-4 times a month, the other 95% of my records sound just fine. But when I do use them - they really add a lot to music enjoyment. So why not?

 

So Tom Irby is a drama queen. Embarrassing anecdote that doesn't show him in a good light. I'm not sure he would want you sharing it.

Were you guys drunk when this happened?

 

I'm on board with bi-passable tone controls...When you need em, you need em.

 

In your house: "I can hear when the song has been mastered poorly. And then I state that it sucks"
In my house: I can hear when the song has been mastered poorly. And then I use a tone control, so that it doesn't suck so much...

 

In that such a case, I'd sell the remastered version of Man Machine and keep the original pressing. That way I'd rather not fuss around tone controls.

 

I am so glad that I just listen to music and not some of you who *know* how I'm supposed to be listening to music.

 

For me , no tone controls=no purchase.

 

I use my subs and my Velodyne SMS to accomplish the same thing - the exact reason why subs came into being - more bass, and by speakers which were designed for that purpose.

Pushing a 'normal' speaker too hard can result in blown woofers and way more distortion - BTDT.

 

One thing I have noticed is that the more $$$ you spend on components, especially speakers, the less need for tone controls.

 

Not a fan of subwoofers, and the fully adjustable range of these two EQ curves influence the sound in a different range than subwoofers. These ZROCK2s are not harming my speakers at all, not pushing them into distortion etc.

 

Has anyone compared the subjective 3 to the loki ?

 

Yep, over in the Loki thread.

Schiit Loki Equalizer released

 

As I said many times, great speakers and components that mesh with each other (synergy) don't need help in the midrange or treble to sound great. The biggest drawback of early and later recordings is in the bass as the engineers, producers and musicians spent most of their time working on both the midrange and treble and often ignored the bass - maybe because their monitors didn't go low enough, or just as important, they want their records to sound great on the radio and cheaper systems which have little bass output and too much bass would cause the speakers to distort as well as mistracking.

I saw musicians, engineers and others listen to the tracks on 6x9 car speakers to make sure the track sounded great! Unfortunately I cannot publish the photos of several groups I was in the studio with.

 

Mike, I listen to a lot of recordings, unofficial as well as pre-tape, and I'm glad subwoofers seem to work for you, but they don't solve the problems for me. For me the ZROCK2 has been the best solution in my fifty years of stereo pursuit. Works admirably in two systems for me.

 

I hear the angst of those with sub par systems that wish to defend the use of tone controls to make up for system deficiencies.
I totally get it.
When I had a cheap table radio I always turned up the loudness compensation to make it sound like something.
There is probably less than a 50/50 chance the audio you are listening to is amazing and it has a 3 dimensional holographic sound stage full of 3 dimensional phase information.
But.
Once you inject the finished product (whatever quality it may or may not have) with a bunch of fake out of phase bass boost or treble surgery the chance you still have a great soundstage is approximately ----zero.
Because now you took whatever "life" was on the recording and completely fxxxxd it up.
THAT is what adding boost does after the fact.
I work hard to hear as much "life" as possible.
You just want a smooth homogenized "signal."
I believe in HiFi.
A lot of you guys just like a nice "sound."
I like "life."
You like "noise."
Two different approaches.
I have no problem with this dichotomy of approaches to sound playback.
But don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining.
Adding stuff AFTER the recording is like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
Knock yourselves out.
I'm done.

 

Well this controversy is never going away, that’s the hobby, my two cents worth is this;

I use my b&t controls to tune my speakers to my room, AFTER extensive positioning to get the speakers as close as I can get them to what I want to achieve.
Then I dial in the b&t listening to my reference cd, which just happens to be JohnnyA’s Get Inside.
Treble is flat, bass is at 1 o’clock.
Don’t touch it after that.
Now my STEREO is tuned to what I find is a reference sound.
I can easily tell which sources are deficient and what is not, but this allows the producers and mastering engineers work to come through, for good or bad.
I do no further changes, so in short I use the b&t controls to tune my SPEAKERS TO MY ROOM. I am not changing anything on the recordings.
Nor do I want to.
Beave

 

Make this sound good if you can, Dr. Superior, Jimmy Hendrix advisor among other titles :

 

This is Dr. Fine listening to "LIFE" and "HiFi."



This is all of the tone control using plebs with sub par systems in this thread listening to "noise."



He's drinking Châteauneuf-du-Pape and you're drinking Thunderbird.

Sorry, chumps!

 

I'd start, even before fiddling with tone controls, by changing the singer

 

Correction: "sub par recordings", not "sub par systems"

 

Speaking of which, I missed out on the Discharge's Noise Not Music boxset.