Jon_Logan
Addicted Member
If they were truly flat, doesn't that indict the source material or your listening preferences instead?
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Why we need tone controls and/or equalizers
- Thread starter Zygmo
- Start date
If they were truly flat, doesn't that indict the source material or your listening preferences instead?
Brett a
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I can only report my own story.
The first piece of gear that rendered tone controls unnecessary was an integrated amplifier. It wasn't even new come to think of it; it was a NAD 2030. I swapped our the Yamaha CR-400 i had been running and that little NAD never needed my to adjust it away from flat (IIRC).
I was running a pair of AR 93's at the time (my only speakers for 23 years---10 or-so of those years I really needed tone controls)
After a few years with the NAD (running flat) and a serious upgrade of CD player (from $30 yard sale units to a $700 Rotel), I finally swapped the NAD out for the integrated the matched my CD player--a Rotel RA-1060 (which had three tone settings controlled by a switch, not pots Still, I never needed to adjust it).
All this very quickly caused me to buy new speakers! Things were really opening up and coming into focus. By the time I had the Rotels driving my then new B&W's i knew I had arrived in a whole new world of high fidelity and clear signal delivery.
Which caused me to buy a new amp, then new sources, etc,etc..
It's been a fun journey and i feel mostly settled now.
But again, to answer your question, i left tone controls behind with that little 30-year-old NAD about 10 years back.
EDIT TO ADD:
And still, when I put my old silver-faced Sony into my current main system, I'm reaching for the tone controls all the time; so there again is evidence that in my case, it's the amp (or more specifically, the pre-amp section)
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JonL
Lunatic Member
Not sure that my stuff is "newer," but I'll try to answer. When I moved up from a Dynaco PAS-3x (vintage) preamp to a ~1990 Audible Illusions Modulus 2D preamp (which I would consider a modern design even if it is 20 years old) my need for tone controls was gone. In conjunction with a very clean sounding turntable and very dynamic speakers, I found that the preamp allowed a clarity of sound to pass through the system that seemed so pure and effortless that things like frequency balance simply became secondary. On a good recording the system allows every instrument and every vocal to stand out with clarity and distinction from everything that surrounds it. It's the clarity of presentation and the details that can be heard that make the music sound just REAL. It is very rare that a frequency imbalance affects the entire recording to such an extent that it detracts from the "you are there" feeling of the presentation. It's rare to hear a recording where the entire recording seems to be too light on the bass, or too bright, etc. It may be that the bass guitar wasn't mixed loudly enough, or that the vocal mike was picking up a little too much sibilance, but I rarely (if ever) get the sense that I could make things better by applying an EQ "correction" to the entire recording. The recordings that don't sound particularly good usually sound congested, two-dimensional, overly saturated with sound, too much reverb, too much artificial L-R panning, etc. None of these things would respond to tone controls.
I was collecting vintage receivers and then that shifted to just buying a ton of audio gear of every variety both new and old. And every one of the best sounding combinations out of all of that gear that I could put together, happened to include a preamp with no tone controls or something like my Yamaha A-1, which had a source direct function that bypassed everything.
With all that gear, I started to just 'voice' the system by what gear I was using and through very careful speaker positioning. I found that by doing that, I could get an overall sound that I was happy with, and never felt the need for tone controls again. After figuring all that out, I bought all new gear with that in mind, current gear, that took everything even further.
I never feel the need to touch anything from an EQ standpoint, and it almost always sounds good to me. But that is not just about not having EQ/tone controls. It also comes from investing in my source equipment, learning about speaker placement, buying heavy spiked speaker stands, believing in things like cables making a tiny difference, carefully adjusting the cartridge all the way through azimuth angle, etc etc...it isn't one decision that lead to me being happy with my system.
Not needing tone controls was the result, not the cause. YMMV.
Scuzzer
Fixed Bias
I guess I must have skipped the need to use tone controls phase, perhaps due to what you stated above. Even with the lowly BOTL Pioneer stuff I started out with at 13 I just never bothered to mess with them much. My horrible sounding Black Sabbath Paranoid record still sounded like it was recorded in a porta potty regardless of where the tone controls were set.
I really, really hated it at our college parties when the guys would crank the bass and treble on the SX-1050 playing through Heresys. Damn that hurt my ears and my musical sensibilities.
NOHDjunkie
Well-Known Member
My Marantz 1060 has Bass, Mid and treble controls. I never use them.
My Pioneer SX750 - Never use them.
My Adcom & Yamaha Preamps- Never use them.
My Yaqin Integrated doesn't have them.
I too think the speaker choice and placement make the difference, regardless of the equipment vintage.
I personally believe that a symmetrical room with proper speaker placement is the issue in a vast majority of setups.
That being said... to each his own. There is no right or wrong answer. Some can't do a "by the book" setup due to space limitations etc. I'm lucky that I have a dedicated space.
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SWL3600
Super Member
My listening preferences require a flexible system. I think listening preferences stem from how we all hear differently....as someone had said earlier in the thread.
Different music, different genres.....very good vs. very poor produced recordings......I've yet to hear a system that could do it all without the ability to "tweak" in one way or another. If someone has one of these, I'd really like to hear it!
gvalent
Well-Known Member
Twenty years ago I used an EQ constantly, at a fixed setting that sounded very good in my room of the time. All of my listening back then was through a dbx-encoded tape deck and at least 50% of the recordings came from vinyl. The vinyl and cds were EQ’d as they were put on tape.
Several years ago I wanted to digitize my old vinyl and started to look at turntables again (ended up going through 3 of them before finding a keeper). I pulled out my old turntable/cartridge and compared it to my new TT/cartridge and difference was quite an eye opener. Even if I did have my old EQ it would not have been necessary. My old TT, old cartridge set up sounded flat and dead compared new TT/new cart system and hence the reason I used EQ. The EQ certainly enhanced the sound for the better for me.
Speakers are a different story. I have/had speakers that sound very good with most all recordings and speakers that sound fantastic with good recordings but bring out the worst on crappy recordings. The crappy recordings need the speaker adjustments tweaked to make them listenable, which is form of EQ.
For low level listening I usually use the loudness knob.
Other than that, I forgot what point I was trying to make.
Several years ago I wanted to digitize my old vinyl and started to look at turntables again (ended up going through 3 of them before finding a keeper). I pulled out my old turntable/cartridge and compared it to my new TT/cartridge and difference was quite an eye opener. Even if I did have my old EQ it would not have been necessary. My old TT, old cartridge set up sounded flat and dead compared new TT/new cart system and hence the reason I used EQ. The EQ certainly enhanced the sound for the better for me.
Speakers are a different story. I have/had speakers that sound very good with most all recordings and speakers that sound fantastic with good recordings but bring out the worst on crappy recordings. The crappy recordings need the speaker adjustments tweaked to make them listenable, which is form of EQ.
For low level listening I usually use the loudness knob.
Other than that, I forgot what point I was trying to make.
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Brett a
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Excellent posts, guys. Those are my thoughts too. Thanks for writing them so well.
reggaenaut
Addicted Member
It appears this thread has ran out of steam.
Brett a
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It appears this thread has ran out of steam.
That's funny, I thought it was finally getting somewhere.
:scratch2:
Brett a
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I think they're dealing with so few frequencies, there's nothing really to control.
(Sorry, just a friendly ribbing.)
JonL
Lunatic Member
Just thought of an example of something (and I think I may go play it with an ear towards this post). I bought a copy of The Grateful Dead's "Wake Of The Flood" when it first came out. I'm sure I have one of the very first LPs to be pressed off an early stamper. I bought it the day it hit the stores. Back then I had a Dual 12xx (near BOTL, maybe one or two steps up), don't recall the cartridge, Dynaco SCA-35 (bone stock), and AR-4x speakers. Back then I ran the AR tweeters full up, and usually added some treble boost from the Dynaco as well for everything. That was just the way my system sounded best. I'd probably do the same today - I'm not anti tone controls if they help. Anyway, back to the LP. It always sounded exceedingly dull to me, even with as much treble help as I could give it with my tone controls. Fast forward 37 years :tears: and when I play it now on my current system it sounds great. It definitely sounds laid back and warm, but instead of sounding dull and lifeless it sounds almost orchestral. The instruments - even electric guitars and cymbals and snare drums - sound round and rich and textured. They sound real, and it sounds like the band was playing quietly in a very small and intimate room. My system now brings out the richness and texture that was put on the record and it sounds great. It's definitely more common to associate "detail" with high frequency response, but in this case the LP has clarity in its richness instead of sparkle. I can only guess that that's the sound the band was after, it was a very mellow period for them, and the sonics fit that mood.
I think John has something here. It seems to me, from reading all these posts...MOST people move away from the controls, instead of towards them, as they (I hate to say this) mature in their listening enjoyment, whether it be from upgrading equipment or not. Maybe I am not still totally immature, in that I quit using equalizers years ago, just depending on the standard tone controls on my integrated amp.
My problem is...I like High highs, and Low lows....so if I have to get my fix artificially....so be it.
And for people without a loudness button, tone controls can be used for at least partial compensation. When I lived in a house rather than an apartment, and could listen at whatever volume felt comfortable to me, I happily lived without tone controls for decades; now that early morning or late evening listening requires volumes so low that you unplug the refrigerator so it doesn't drown out the music, tone controls can restore a more natural balance to the sound.
The conrad-johnson, Naim, and Linn amplification I used for a bit over 20 years had no tone controls. I switched to Audio by Van Alstine gear when my LK1 preamp died, and my OmegaStar PAT-5 has tone controls. I've found them highly useful for apartment living (as a pseudo-loudness knob for extreme low-level listening, for reducing bass impact of explosions, train wrecks, etc. on movie soundtracks, etc.). I find I need more extensive equalization for certain program sources, such as old-time radio shows on MP3 files. The recordings sometimes have a bass-heavy, chesty quality that reduces the intelligibility of male voices. The equalizer on the computer program Real Player helps make these programs thoroughly enjoyable.
That makes total sense to me. I'm not restricted in volume in my main system, but my work system (which was a Sansui 8 and now is going to be a MAC 1900) is not something I can blast, and on the Sansui I would up the bass just a bit at low level to get a more full sound. Turning the bass knob up a bit worked better than the loudness. I should bring something in with a variable loudness contour. I was going to bring my MAC 4100 in for just that reason but sold it instead.
Just using a loudness button is usually too much for me, except at very low volume. A variable loudness contour might be ok, but isn't that just more or less a simple equalizer? Have never had one to try.
I hope this doesn't make me sound like a rank amateur, but I've always wondered...does any equipment have loudness contours that decrease with volume, and if not, why not? :scratch2:
I hope this doesn't make me sound like a rank amateur, but I've always wondered...does any equipment have loudness contours that decrease with volume, and if not, why not? :scratch2:
Brett a
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I'm pretty sure some of the old Yamaha gear has automatically proportional loudness. I believe my CR 810 (I think it was an 810) did. The higher you roll the volume up, the less loudness is applied.