Oh, the joys of tone controls

[bigfish786]

Finally felt the need to tweek the sound today, listening to a cassette that sounded a little flat, just a touch of treble, and a little less bass and it made so much difference

oh, why have I not had tone controls before ?

It didn’t take much of an adjustment for it to bring the music to life .

Wish id bought this amp years ago

 

[Strictly Stereo]

Finally felt the need to tweek the sound today, listening to a cassette that sounded a little flat, just a touch of treble, and a little less bass and it made so much difference

oh, why have I not had tone controls before ?

It didn’t take much of an adjustment for it to bring the music to life .

Wish id bought this amp years ago

They are certainly not new, but they seemed to go out of fashion for a decade or two. Have fun!

 

[Macspur]

Finally felt the need to tweek the sound today, listening to a cassette that sounded a little flat, just a touch of treble, and a little less bass and it made so much difference

oh, why have I not had tone controls before ?

It didn’t take much of an adjustment for it to bring the music to life .

Wish id bought this amp years ago

Wouldn't be without them now.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com

 

[newlash09]

I am aware that tone controls work in a narrow band width as determined by the designer. But I used tone controls engaged continously with small speakers on my last trip. Got the bass to sound more pronounced to my liking. Better have rather than not in an amp for me.

 

[MajorFubar]

I've only had cheap amplifiers with tone controls. Without using them, the amps always sounded boring, dull and lifeless. Yet the amps I've owned without tone controls never seemed to need them. But that's probaby because they were of a higher quality to start with. If tweaking the tone a little allows you to get a bit more enjoyment then what harm is it doing, certainly none in my book.

 

[Deleted member 108165]

Never felt the need to use my tone controls, just keep source direct on, but they are very handy if you should ever need them.

You're in a good mood tonight aren't you Major!

 

[johnnyboy1950]

If you want the SQ to sound true to the source then dont bother with tone controls. The reality is that not all sources sound the same, some need help with modern amps.

My CXA80 has a tone bypass which makes no difference to SQ when I have the controls set to neutral. I really think an amp with no tone controls is very limiting but there are plenty of them around particularly in the higher price bracket. But if the source is lacking then the best amp you can buy without tone controls wont help. Unless you think you should be loyal to the source however poor it is. Not Me!

 

[Infiniteloop]

I find tone controls very handy for dodgy recordings. The ones I use are all done in the digital domain and for this reason I don’t feel (rightly or wrongly) that I’m adding distortion to the signal. The Devialet does this best, but the graphic equaliser in iTunes also does a decent job into the Chord DAC.

 

[Infiniteloop]

Double post. Dodgy mobile site.

 

[paulkebab]

be without them. Dodgy ears and some even dodgier masterings don't make a pretty aural picture, although most of the time I just use a little treble lift on the amp. Not a single bit of guilt here, have a look at a mixing desk then relax.

REW also plotted a huge 180Hz hump that was causing major colouration, reduced it by -5dB and that made a HUGE difference.

 

[Electro]

I've never felt a need for tone controls in fact I can't think of one song I have ever played that would really benefit from using them , that is of course if I had any which I don't. *biggrin*

 

[BigH]

I never use tone controls either. One good thing about streaming is you can adjust the sound with a graphic equaliser if need be, far more effective than tone controls. I never play cassettes, awful things, ok for the car when it had a cassette player. Sound flat yes probably because of Dolby.

 

[andyjm]

Apparently, a number of posters dont need tone controls, they just change their speaker cables ......

On a more serious note, decent analogue filters are a pain, particularly if you want two filters to track (as in a stereo implementation). Good ones need pricey high spec components. They do introduce more steps in the chain, and potentially more distortion. Rightly so, many purists back in the day got rid of lowgrade filters in their amps and heard improvements.

It became accepted that high quality amps didn't have tone controls.

Roll forward 30 years and now filters can be easily and accurately implemented in software. The old greybeard 'tone controls are the work of the devil' mantra has no place when you can adjust the tonal balance before the digital audio even gets to the DAC.

Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

 

[MajorFubar]

Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

Quite, and even aside from allowing you to 'remove your room' as it were, there is additional flexibility to compensate for poorly-EQ'd recordings. During my just-completed exercise to digitize some LPs in my collection that were never released on CD, I've re-EQ'd one them to restore more accurate tonal balance. It was clear it was mastered with its lower frequencies curtailed in order to fit its 58 minute running-time on a single LP.

 

[bigfish786]

What would have been nice was if I could tweek the bass and treble via the remote control. But it’s a “get off your arse” and adjust on the amp feature.

 

[gasolin]

Only use it on my active Yamaha HS7 for the bass, everything is stock, everthing sounds good and doesn't make it sound more bright,dark,fullbodied thin than the record

 

[radiorog]

Roll forward 30 years and now filters can be easily and accurately implemented in software.  The old greybeard 'tone controls are the work of the devil' mantra has no place when you can adjust the tonal balance before the digital audio even gets to the DAC.

 Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

Where in the chain are the filters? The source, or are you saying modern tone controls in high quality amps are effective before the inbuilt DAC?

 

[Kage]

My Tannoy M1s imo sound flat without the bass up on my amp.
Maybe it means the amp struggles? Doesn't distort though and it really makes the speakers shine.

Maybe some speakers need that little bit of tinkering?

 

[MajorFubar]

Roll forward 30 years and now filters can be easily and accurately implemented in software. The old greybeard 'tone controls are the work of the devil' mantra has no place when you can adjust the tonal balance before the digital audio even gets to the DAC.

Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

Where in the chain are the filters? The source, or are you saying modern tone controls in high quality amps are effective before the inbuilt DAC?

Digital signal processing occurs ahead of DAC. The consequence is the DAC is obviously not then receiving a true 'bit perfect' stream of data compared to the source file, instead it is receiving one which has had its tonal balance tweaked to listener-taste, or with more advanced DSP applications, to compensate for room / speaker abberations.

 

[radiorog]

Roll forward 30 years and now filters can be easily and accurately implemented in software. The old greybeard 'tone controls are the work of the devil' mantra has no place when you can adjust the tonal balance before the digital audio even gets to the DAC.

Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

Where in the chain are the filters? The source, or are you saying modern tone controls in high quality amps are effective before the inbuilt DAC?

Digital signal processing occurs ahead of DAC. The consequence is the DAC is obviously not then receiving a true 'bit perfect' stream of data compared to the source file, instead it is receiving one which has had its tonal balance tweaked to listener-taste, or with more advanced DSP applications, to compensate for room / speaker abberations.

AHH, so that's what dsp is, cheers! Do any amps have anolgue tonal correction prior to going to an internal DAC?

 

[MajorFubar]

No, amps with analog tone correction such as bass/treble controls or slider-type graphic EQ's all apply the EQ between the preamp and the power amp, so after the D>A conversion. You couldn't apply analog tone adjustment to a digital signal.

 

[radiorog]

No, amps with analog tone correction such as bass/treble controls or slider-type graphic EQ's all apply the EQ between the preamp and the power amp, so after the D>A conversion. You couldn't apply analog tone adjustment to a digital signal.

Cool. Cheers 🙂

 

[newlash09]

Roll forward 30 years and now filters can be easily and accurately implemented in software.  The old greybeard 'tone controls are the work of the devil' mantra has no place when you can adjust the tonal balance before the digital audio even gets to the DAC.

 Given the huge differences that room acoustics make to the perceived sound, using tone controls, graphical type equalisers or more complex room equalisation makes perfect sense.

Where in the chain are the filters? The source, or are you saying modern tone controls in high quality amps are effective before the inbuilt DAC?

Digital signal processing occurs ahead of DAC. The consequence is the DAC is obviously not then receiving a true 'bit perfect' stream of data compared to the source file, instead it is receiving one which has had its tonal balance tweaked to listener-taste, or with more advanced DSP applications, to compensate for room / speaker abberations.

 AHH, so that's what dsp is, cheers! Do any amps have anolgue tonal correction prior to going to an internal DAC?

You can use eq on the digital signal before it goes into the dac. This gives you more precise control on the correction you want in frequency levels. Once the signal goes into the dac, the output analogue signal is adjusted via tone controls in the pre-amp section of the amp. Tone controls, balance and volume control all take place in the pre-amp section. And each of these implementations takes a toll on the sound quality. Thus more purist designs don't offer tone or balance control. Or you only find them well implemented in more expensive pre-amps.

This pre-amp signal goes into the power amp section. Which is just a dumb magnification circuit. It has a fixed gain as advertised in the specs of the amp. And a good power amp should do this magnification without adding any distortion or noise in doing so. And the output should stay true to the input. So the audio quality to a large extent depends on the source, then the dac, then the pre amp and last the power amp section. So it is advisable to use digital eq than engage tone controls to preserve a better audio quality.

That said, I have used tone controls with bass shy speakers. And the trade off in clarity was worth the increase in bass and musicality of the end result. However if I had a option I would have used digital eq like mini dsp ddrc-22d 🙂