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  3. 135979-20253

We give up perspective to avoid tone controls

Hi Everyone,

While most of my thread starters are meant to be fun, I realize this one is downright provocative, so I'm going to try extra hard to be civil. 

One thing that is implicit in the culture of "high end audio" is the disdain for any sort of electronic equalization. The culture disdains the use of anything other than a volume control. Instead we attempt to change everything to avoid this. Speakers, speaker cables, amplifiers, and power cords. We'll shovel tens of thousands of dollars of gear in and out of our listening room to avoid them. 

Some audiophiles even disdain any room acoustic treatments. I heard one brag, after saying he would never buy room treatments: "I will buy a house or not based on how good the living room is going to sound." 

What's weird to me, is how much equalization is done in the mastering studio, how different pro speakers may sound from what you have in your listening room, and how much EQ happens within the speakers themselves. The RIAA circuits in all phono preamps IS a complicated three state EQ, we're OK with that, but not tone controls? 

What attracts us to this mind set? Why must we hold ourselves to this kind of standard? 

Best,


E
erik_squires
tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
@steakster 

The biggest things HEA is ignoring right now are subwoofers, real bass management (I.e. a true active crossover built into the preamp or integrated amp to high pass the mains, low pass the sub, and correct for distance and phase) and room correction.  

I’ve hear Lyngdorf’s Roomperfect is great, but their units fail on other counts by refusing to integrate a sub out and bass management.   Anthem is doing it right with their STR series, and DEQX has room correction and bass management, but from what I’ve read their units aren’t capable of handling automatic distance and phase correction for subwoofers, which seems like a major oversight.  

These are are all basic things that have been in $500 AV Receivers for years, how hard are they to integrate into 2-channel gear?


erik_squires OP
15,772 posts
 
 This is potentially the most important thread that could have possibly been started on any forum anywhere in the HEA world.


Thanks for your kind words, Michael, but I feel like this is probably just covering old ground. :) 

Best,


E
joeylawn36111
574 posts
 
I find it hard to believe that if one had a high-end system that sounded like it needed some equalization of frequency response, and they put a Manley Massive Passive EQ in their system(as an example), that said EQ would 'hurt' the sound. Note: I'm not talking about a system that does not need equalization, but one that does.
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,436 posts
 
The room correction used by Lyngdorf is something that has helped take my room out of the equation.  I would never be without now that it has spoiled me. I suppose the use of this unit is on topic.  I also use Roon’s DSP EQ some at times to compensate for recordings that need a little tuning.  
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,859 posts
 
Almarg  gotta toss im OHM Walsh to the list of time coherent designs and their sound definitely reflects what you described.    
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