Tone controls are good for two things:
Fixing room anomalies. Second best to fixing the anomalies.
Letting you play record producer. Probably only for kids.
I miss my Loudness Button and Tone Controls....
So I recently upgraded my system to a Rogue Audio Sphinx integrated amplifier, V2.
Prior to this purchase I was using a NAD C162 preamp, and an Emotive UA-200 amplifier.
After a month of listening, I have to say, I miss the tone controls and the loudness feature on the old NAD pre-amp, especially when listening at lower volumes. The Rogue amp sounds great when played at a minimum of 50% of its output, but at lower volumes, it just seems flat. I do use a sub (SVS SB-2000 pro, and I'm using a very efficient speaker (Zu Audio DW's).
I've toyed with the idea of buying an EQ of some sort that has a bypass so that I can boost some of the frequencies when listening at lower volumes, and then bypass when I listening at higher volumes.
Any thoughts on this? Anyone experience anything similar? I'm about to pack and sell the Rogue amp, as the cons outweigh the pros for me.
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X2 with older ears and hearing changes. barkeyzee1, do you use a digital streamer? Some of them have ways of implementing tone controls and even some sub crossover stuff. The Bluesound Node 2i has these- just have to toggle them on. I currently have a Peachtree Nova 300 and it lacks tone controls. My next rig will have them. Need the price of Luxman to come down... ha How are you liking the Zu DW's??? They are on my short list. |
+1 for the Schiit Loki. I have the original, and using it slightly foreshortened the sense of depth, but otherwise it had little detriment effect to the sound. Like others have suggested, I did switch my preamplifier- from an old Audio Research SP6B to a Cary SLP05 with ultimate upgrade, and the need for the Loki to tame the high end tizzies on some recordings went away, so I no longer need it. But it did work wonders at taming the hot top ends of poorly mastered recordings (like the High-res anniversary edition remaster of the Chicago Transit Authority- ouch!) |
- 99 posts total