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Tone controls- to use or not?

Thanks to years of playing in bands, and more recently working in a noisy environment, I've come to the sad realisation that my 40-year old ears no longer have their original upper frequency response. Adding a bit of "treble" on my amp's tone controls helps, but I'm normally loathe to use these controls.

Should I be looking at changing my setup to incorporate "brighter" sounding components, or is adding a little treble with the tone controls legitimate?

My system is a Cambridge 640C player, NAD c720 stereo receiver (based on c320 amp) and B&W DM602 speakers, Monster cable IC's and heavy guage "Kordz" (Australian) copper speaker wires.
carl109
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
as a side note, i will purchasing a decware amplifier which is supplied with an attenuator. i intend to use it. the designer has indicated that he uses it as well.

half of the fun in this hobby is tinkering. tone controls is one way to tinker. the other half is enjoying the music.
samuel33
53 posts
 
MrTennis said : "half of the fun in this hobby is tinkering. tone controls is one way to tinker. the other half is enjoying the music."

Tinkering is fun in the domain that can possibly improve the sound

In this case modifying the tone will lead to bad result in 98% of the case

And in this will damage his hears even more

-----

By the way old orchestra's conductor don't use a tone corrector lol

Neither the old people with ear damges in the assistance

And they seems to enjoy the concert though

Go figure...
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
there is an implicit assumption that that the engineer and the performer want the purchaser of a recording to hear "something"

Well erm...Yes that is kinda the idea of music - generally your expected to hear something. I guess some people do use CD's as coasters and some people just collect stuff (memorabilia) but generally most people buy music so they can hear the music (which includes all its nuances of loud/soft/timbre etc.) Some people buy several versions of the same tracks - remixes and such for dance clubs are often more fun with better dynamic range. I can't see the majority of artists, producers and engineers not caring what it sounds like on consumer systems...
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
hi samuel33:

tinkering is fun, regardless of the outcome. humans are naturally curious. the fun of tinkering is not being able to predict the result. the process is more important than the result.

why does altering the tone produce sonic degradadtion ? here is another example of dogmatic thinking. one person's discomfort is another person's enjoyment.

one cannot generalize as to what is enjoyable for another person.
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kijanki
4,394 posts
 
Altering tone always produces sonic degradation because it puts one more element in the chain (even if you set it 0dB/0dB). It destroys clarity imaging etc. For many people clarity/ imaging is the goal - not fun of tinkering.
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