2. amps-preamps
  3. 1211935390

The use of equipment as "tone controls"

Several times in my Audiogon reading and posting over the last couple of years, I've noticed this or that contributor commenting along the lines of: "You shouldn't use your amp/cables/cartridge/whatever as a tone control."

I assume what this is supposed to mean is that there is some absolutely correct sound out there, and we ought not have audio equipment of any kind that deviates from that absolutely correct sound.

I might be able to buy into this if we were listening to live instruments (although their sound is, of course, affected by the space in which they are played, the position of the listener, etc., so is not itself "absolute"). But we're not listening to live music. We're listening to recordings. There are microphones, cables, recording equipment, mastering equipment, storage medium, etc, all of which come between us and the original sound--not to mention the taste and perception of the engineers, producers, etc. In that sense, what we hear coming out of our speakers is all illusion, anyway. And the illusion comes in quite a few "flavors." On one system I had, Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard sounded like he was in my living room. But Leonard Bernstein conducting the NY Phil in the early 60's was so shrill it made me run screaming from the room. In my current system, Bill Evans doesn't sound as "right there" as he used to (now I'm a few of rows back, yet still quite happy), but Leonard Bernstein doesn't make my ears bleed, either.

How did I work that? I experimented with different equipment. I used the equipment as "tone controls" (I guess). It's all respectible equipment: ARC, VTL, BAT, Cardas, etc. Maybe it reduced the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Bill Evans, but it increased the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Leonard Bernstein. Maybe. But who knows for sure?

We all tailor the sound of our systems to suit our preferences. What's wrong with that? And, most equipment has it's own sound character. That seems like a good thing, to me. It allows us to tailor our sound.

Now what we REALLY need is a good set of tone controls on our fancy pre-amps, so we can really tailor our sound!

Food for comment?
eweedhome

Showing 4 responses by jafox

jafox
1,445 posts
 
Thanks - sometimes the obvious really does need to be stated.
Perhaps, but what is often NOT obvious is how destructive the "obvious solution" can be.

A $200-300 equalizer maybe resolve some tonality issues, i.e., peaks and valleys, but it can also destroy the dynamic contrasts and spatial queues to a point where the effort to achieve a believable result is all for not.

"You shouldn't use your amp/cables/cartridge/whatever as a tone control."
Ultimately you should do whatever works for you without losing the magic in your system's performance that you have worked hard and paid much to achieve.

There are many ways to resolve tonality problems and an equalizer might be fine for a Walmart rack system but beyond that, it would be my last option.
jafox
1,445 posts
 
.... since by design they (tone controls) are truly out of the signal path till they are engaged or set to 0db
Oh how much so many of us would like this to be true. But essentially tone controls are cascaded filter circuits set to unity gain when at the "0db" setting. The signal is still going through them unless there is a bypass switch and then you have that to contend with as well. Look at all the attention made by many designers to incorporate volume controls (no filter at all) that do not affect the sound.
jafox
1,445 posts
 
Great response from Atmasphere on the issue of synergy. I agree wholeheartedly. "Balance", rather than synergy, has often been the word I have used to implement a system of products on their strengths. But "compatibility" is a great description of this process.
jafox
1,445 posts
 
I'd rather have an "anomaly" in the bass than run the signal through a filter and risk the loss of detail, ambiance, dynamic contrasts, etc., in the other 8-9 octaves. Now if you can correct this bass dip through a bi-amp process, whereas the upper octaves are sent directly to the associated amp, rather than also going through the "correction" device, that may be work out .... but this has its own set of problems and added cost. Ultimately, I find that simplicity wins for me every time.
More to discover