Does the Primaluna have tape output and input connections? If it does you can use an equalizer. If it does not you can’t add any kind of outboard tone control.
can you add tone controls to a primaluna HP integrated amp
Miss not having tone controls
25 responses Add your response
BEFORE: I advise getting a sound meter and studying how to use it in various locations in your listening area. Then, move your speakers around a bit, keep checking, before adding tone controls. You will be ready, knowing what frequencies you want to primarily control. Tone controls are interactive, avoid aggressive use, best to know if you need general or specific adjustment. AND, if/when you change speakers, you will be able to see how they interact in your listening area. Tape loop as others have said. You can also add a unit prior to the preamp, You can use it's tone controls, use it's other features, send it's output optionally: use only one input in your preamp, (. i.e. tape monitor, aux, phono HIGH, any unused line level input) or into integrated amp, or directly into your amp if you have volume control somewhere. I use Chase Remote Line Controler RLC-1 https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Chase-RLC-1-Remote-Line-Controller-New-with-remote-manual-in-original-box/293098775817?epid=1424512686&hash=item443e0c6509:g:1AEAAOSwS1Nc5E7q From my listening position, it gives me remote volume, and the feature I most love 'balance'. I find many recordings benefit from very minor balance adjustment. Amazing how much difference that can make. It has tone 'bass' and 'treble', however, they change both channels together, so you cannot make a squeak of a difference left or right if that rare need exists. ......................................... It is a separate discussion regarding the RLC-1's automatic 'LOUDNESS' compensation at low volumes. Or ANY 'loudness' compensation. Be aware while auditioning any tone control unit, customers and/or salesman may have left it improperly engaged, a poor impression of an excellent unit might be experienced. IMO, it is poorly understood, therefore it's loudness is engaged before beneficial, resulting in boosted bass at too loud volume levels. In fact, 'loudness' has been misunderstood, improperly engaged, almost always. It should have been named 'low volume eq'. Loudness Setup: Use primary volume for your LOWEST focused volume listening from your dedicated listening position. Then, when listening at lower volumes (unlikely to be in primary listening position), as you lower the volume, LOUDNESS progressively boosts one or eigher end: most often bass, original Fletcher Munson Curve boosts both bass end and high end progressively as volume decreases. Properly engaged, 'loudness' definitely moves low volume sounds from background noise to 'involving' music. When you lose bass or highs due to human ear's variable sensitivity, you lose both the fundamentals and the overtones. ............................................. Keep in mind, as we age, we progressively lose the ability to hear highs, therefore, a 'loudness' curve boosting both lows and highs helps with that. RLC-1 boosts only the bass. This is why a reviewer of age discussing highs is laughable. If you miss tone controls, as you age, you benefit from treble control more, and treble boost (narrow dispersion) is less likely to involve room interactions, boosted bass (very wide/omni-directional dispersion quickly gets magnified by room interactions, especially if 'loudness' is engaged too early. ...................................... btw. RLC-1 has two sets of outputs. It was developed in the era of QUAD, so it has 'front' and 'rear' and 'fader'. I use the rear to feed an alternate amp setup, with interchangeable speaker wires via bananna plugs, to switch between tube amps and digital amps. EVERYONE chooses my 30 wp tube mono amps over my 320 wpc McIntosh solid state. .......................................... btw. Check any tone control's signal to noise ratio, crosstalk, and channel separation. Highest, highest, highest, you want it to be 'invisible' in the audio chain except what you specifically want. RLC-1's ratings are 105db; -110db; 100db. No one can hear any difference with it in or out of my chain, so I benefit from all it's features with no audible penalty. ......................................... BTW, I sound like a Chase salesman, but I never owned Chase stock, and the company is long out of business. It is a wonderfully misunderstood unit. |
Use Roon and its incredible DSP features. You are missing out if you continue to suffer poor tonally balanced recordings. Roon has given crappy recordings brand new life. Do not cycle hardware components trying to tune for a certain tone. I have a Loki and i do agree it is a great eq. Very transparent...but ever since Roon...bye bye |
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Just ordered one, worth the cost to see for myself, and I cannot at all agree with what ebm said here, since from my perspective its an issue of the recording vs the system that I often need to tamper with. But, as in all things, ebm and others can and will disagree. I have the option of tone controls in my nig system, and often find them of great use. To me. And my ears. 2 of my three systems have the option, and now the third will too. |
We should all honor "what the artist intended" without exception. Its a rule. My experience has been that the artist intended for the public to purchase and listen to their music. Full stop. Never seen a single musician refund my money in outrage that that particular frequency must not be corrected. As much as I hate to admit it, I have a Loki in a tape loop on one of my setups and I’ll be darned if it doesn’t always sound better when called upon than I want to let on. I may use it a couple of times each week but it is better than to not listen to something because it/my system/my room don’t play nice. It always bothers me though and knocks me a bit off balance that I have a couple of thousand dollars of interconnects going to and from this $150 tone control. Oh well, I’ve needed my head examined for some time now. |
lak3,600 posts06-19-2019 10:04pm+2 on the Schiit Loki.+3 on the Schiit Loki, just feed your source into it, and the output of it to one of the PL's inputs. Cheers George |
Well it seems you are plum loki if you don't and a shameful person if you do. I would consider buying an active crossover/room correction unit like the DBX Venue360. New about $750. Used much less. You will need to bypass your current crossover. Why? Because computers do room correction now so well you think you died and were reborn. |
I tried a Schiit Loki in the tape loop of my Pass XP-22 and it just killed the sound. Both the volume and resolution dropped. It may be due to my having XLR connections everywhere else. I suggested to Schiit that they provide XLRs. I only tried the Schiit as a solution for my vinyl source. I’m using the vastly superior Roon with DSP for digital. In my room my Vandersteen 5a Carbons sound too bright in the midrange at times. So I created a mid shelf DSP setting exactly matching the crossover points and 6db slope of the midrange driver. I created three versions with 1, 2 and 3 dB down levels. It works wonders at times. For the analog side, the best I can do for now is to run my MC cartridge load down at 100 ohms. I wish I had a much bigger room. |
Another vote for the Loki, I use it between my source and a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium Integrated, it lets me enjoy listening to some recordings that are too bright and thin sounding. I have a very simple system and have it dialed in, great recordings sound wonderful, but a lot of my old Blues albums, specially live albums, don't. When I want to listen to those albums I flip the switch and it cuts down on the HFs and fattens the sound. |
Why you would let me borrow it ?Cause he's a "saint" https://cdn0.iconfinder.com/data/icons/totalcake-emoticons/35/saint-512.png But you can also trial them for 15 days from Schiit, small restocking fee if returned. Cheres George |
How much for your loki GeorgeDon’t own one, I like my systems balance, but I still want one, I bidded on a used one on ebay, but it went higher than I wanted to go $100. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Schiit-Loki-Equalizer-/283521748202?hash=item4203368cea%3Ag%3Ara8AAOSwxmldCmcf&nma=true&si=PnSKz%252FjDGzipayYu54n64PMnXvU%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 Cheers George |
