Tone controls - who needs 'em?

[bikerhifinut]

There's a good point made by David (RW), I never gave it much thought until just now. I tend to play my music at quite high levels, not just because I am an unreconstructed heavy rock fan! But i also find that at low levels the music just doesnt seem to "gel". This could be the original argument for the much maligned "loudness" compensation circuit, These are times when a little tweak of the bass and treble boost are useful, late at night when the spouse is trying to sleep upstairs and I'm suffering from insomnia.
And the point made about "transparency" strikes a note with me, I have owned in the past a couple of amps with bypassable tone controls. A Marantz PM45 and an Audiolab 8000A, in both cases setting the tone to "Flat" didnt make any appreciable difference to my untrained ears. So this suggests from RW's comments that Marantz and Audiolab knew a bit about the job.
Finally (phew!) I had a Creek CAS4040 in the mid 80's and it had a unique sort of sound in that at low levels it seemed to have an inbuilt "loudness" compensation. It probably wasnt the most accurate amp in the world but I for one know why they were popular after being demo'd in the hi fi shop and at home. And I wish I still had it but the burglars had it away.......................

I'm seriously contemplating building a preamp with a bit of tone correction in it now. Just to see what I get out of it.
A.

[Edward Huggins]

Well, you certainly needed a tone control (i.e. "Treble Cut") on a mid/late 1950s record player or radiogram when that same basic amplifier had to cope with 78s, 45s and 33s - all with their different modulations and characteristics - not to mention AM and FM transmissions.....Edward

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

...Microphones all over the place, microphones up the proverbial...

Yes, that's a point often forgotten. Only a 'Blumlein pair' (crossed cardioids) actually records signals which add up to stereo at the listeners ears, when reproduced over loudspeakers (that is, including the cross-talk paths of L speaker to R ear etc). And only a 'head' (B&K, HATS etc) works for producing recordings for binaural (headphone) listening - if you want to be really fussy, the head ought to belong to the listener and his/her alone, to incorporate their own HRTFs (head related transfer functions). 'Decca Trees', close mics with panned signals, you name what else, produce nice spatial effects which haven't got anything to do with maths or what happened at someone's ears in the room. But who cares? Nearly no-one, which is why most people listen to music using their telephone, perhaps through something like a small extension speaker . Also why hi-end loudspeaker manufacturers of yore moved into the headphone market (B&W, looking at you).

[Hartley118]

The job of the recording producer and engineer is to create an audio illusion that will be liked by customers and record reviewers. In fact, once upon a time, in the case of pop records it was a matter of cutting the disc to sound loud and otherwise as prominent as possible on a jukebox. Hence the very high modulation levels on many vintage 45s!

I wonder whether I'm alone in sometimes wishing I was supplied with tone controls when listening to a live classical concert. Often enough, the violins could do with a bit of treble boost, whereas if double-basses end up located under an overhanging balcony, their sound can be over-dominant and lack definition. And a smallish rectangular hall can to my ears sound coloured in the mid-range, particularly in a big choral work. I'd love to be able to make appropriate corrections.

But then, perhaps a lifetime of listening to loudspeakers has distorted my expectations!

Martin

[unitaudio]

I think it comes down to what the user wants from their system. A lot of people seem to confuse an accurate sound with a preferred sound. In fairness, most people don't appreciate the difference or care anyway. I sometimes think they're the lucky ones...

I have to admit I tend to favour a preferred sound, bass up a few dB and maybe a little treble boost to balance the bass out. I listen to Drum 'n' bass, Reggae, Jazz, even a bit of Prog rock and punk. In some of these genres at least, accuracy isn't necessarily desirable or even possible. When an instrument is plugged directly into the mixing desk and no microphone is used and hence no room sound is captured, exactly what can one refer to as a measure of accuracy?

I work in a recording studio and the difference between domestic and professional equipment suggests to me that meaningful comparison between these two disparate worlds doesn't reveal much of any practical use. Also, the criteria for the use of EQ. in the studio are totally different to those for use of EQ. in domestic surroundings.

Lastly, a lot of old live recordings I have would be unlistenable without tone controls. In some cases these cassettes were recorded on cheap Walkman-type machines or radio-cassette portables and need all the help they can get! I'm not saying the use of the bass and treble pots instantly makes such recordings into shining paragons of technical perfection, rather that I'm thankful I can make these recordings at least endurable! Of course, all this has nothing to do with hi fi whatsoever but it has everything to do with making the listening experience pleasurable for myself. If I'm wrong for using equipment in this way then I apologise for being awkward and not liking what I'm told I should but at the age of 47 I resent being told what I can and can't do with my own possessions!

Regards,
Paul

[Radio Wrangler]

I used to have a framed cartoon of a recording engineer handing a microphone to a worried-looking musician whose acoustic instrument and jacket already had mikes clipped on everywhere "And this microphone goes up your wazoo" was the caption.

I sometimes get roped in to do the photography for quite a large opera company, and the final costume rehearsals in the actual venue can be rather overpowering in an auditorium without an audience to damp it. I don't worry that the sound isn't right, I just enjoy a live performance and accept the sound as being what it is, because it is at least real. It'll be different on the night, but that's real too. There's an extra kick in seeing your photographs turn up on billboards outside the venue and as 1/3 page jobs in the arty sections of posh newspapers.

I want my hifi to give me that same feeling. Maybe it's not right, maybe it doesn't get all the pundit-preferred adjectives, but it's MY system in MY home, not theirs.

I'm very careful to never make claims about rightness or accuracy, because I know there usually is nothing to base them on.

David

[regentone001]

The sound of a recording be it record,cd,tape or whatever is very subjective. No two people hear things in exactly the same way. Even at a live concert some will say the bass was too loud or the treble insufficient.
I think the same subject of user controls could also be said about colour, contrast brightness and tint on a tv. Why do we need them? In the early days of colour tv people would have the colour turned up to make everything vivid so proving they had a colour set. These days its not done so much but some still like their colour to be more vivid than others. The same can be said about what we hear. Some like it more vivid than others.
No two rooms are exactly the same, some have carpet some don't. Some have soft furnishings, some don't. Some have both or neither. It all makes a difference to the brightness or otherwise of what we listen to and with tone controls we can adjust that sound to suit ourselves and our surroundings.
Steve

[Dave Anderson]

Peter Walker (Quad) once said the theoretical perfect amplifier was "a straight wire with gain". Of course his amplifiers had tone controls which seems to contradict the idea. My own view, having listened to amplifiers with and without them, is that resolution of detail is greater on those amplifiers lacking tone controls. It's rather like looking at the world through a clean window. You don't feel the need to change anything. Amplifiers with tone controls, in my opinion, can change things greatly but you're still looking through a dirty window!

Dave.

[Welsh Anorak]

One way to annoy me when I was young was for someone to listen to my hi-fi system and say 'what a lovely tone it has'. Of course they were being polite and couldn't understand why I regarded it as an insult.
Conversely around the same time a friend had just bought a new system and asked what I thought of it. I said the sound was unremarkable - which I'd intended as a compliment but it wasn't taken that way!
Glyn

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Dave Anderson

....My own view, having listened to amplifiers with and without them, is that resolution of detail is greater on those amplifiers lacking tone controls...

Hmm. I think you'll find that's a contentious issue here, but a widely held belief in audiophile circles. In any case, unless you're listening to the same amplifier with and without them, there's other things in the mix, so it's a void test, meaningless. If you were able to listen to the same amp with and without its tone controls, then providing they're set to give the same frequency response as without them, then in a blind (ABX) test I doubt very much if you'd hear the difference.

In general I'd say the 'no tone controls rule' is just one of many popularly held beliefs or 'myths' by the audiophile community, as are hundreds of other such things. I came into the world of hifi in the early 70s just as all this kind of intense, subjective, flowery, 'over descriptive', approach to reviewing equipment was being ushered in by a new wave of hifi journalists and magazines, and it spread like wildfire. Soon, anyone with an interest in hifi was using buzz phrases like 'soundstage', 'sonically', 'spacial', 'harmonically', 'spacious', and so on. The think is, I like my hifi to be high quality - very high quality - but having come to the sport from an electronics and musical background background, it gives one a totally different appreciation and understanding of what is actually going on, not just perception and a belief based on having read too many hifi mag reports (they all say different things BTW!). And I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, audiophiles are scared to death of ABX testing. Why? because it drives a huge hole through most of the rubbish that's spouted about how certain things sound different, when they don't.

[Dave Anderson]

In the real world there is, for most people, no need for tone controls. Usually those who have them keep them in the 'flat' position or defeat them completely, if that's an option on the amplifier. You really can live without them. Of course there are exceptional circumstances where a case can be made for them, i.e. if you suffer hearing loss or you play a lot of historic recordings. Let go of the comfort blanket...

Dave.

[paulsherwin]

I must say I've never been able to hear any difference between tone controls switched out and in on an amp which has this facility (I own one, a Rotel RA-930AX). That doesn't mean no difference is there of course. There might be inverse audiophile snobbery going on

[Hartley118]

Comparing an amp with and without its tone controls switched into circuit is itself a tricky exercise. You may have the bass and treble knobs set to 'FLAT' at their midpoint, but how flat are they really? How linear are the pots?

When checking the frequency response of a an amplifier, it's often necessary to adjust the tone controls slightly off-centre to get the flattest response. It's of course then good to loosen the knobs and readjust their positions so that they then are electrically centred - as long as the pot spindle doesn't have a flat on it for the grubscrew.

Some pots of course have a centre detent at the supposed FLAT position, but we should ask - how electrically accurate is that detent?

These issues are irrelevant if you simply adjust your tone controls by ear, but do have to be carefully considered before making subjective comparisons with and without the defeat switch.

Martin

[dseymo1]

A very good point, Martin.
One would hope that expensive, high quality amplifiers would have their tone controls 'trimmed and padded' for accuracy, but the reality is, let's say, less certain.
Similarly, I've always been suspicious of the nice symmetrical tone control response curves published by some manufacturers (there are exceptions). Are these really performance curves, or idealised design parameters?

[Radio Wrangler]

I've not yet seen an amplifier with trimmers to allow the tone controls to be corrected for centre position, or even for match of position between channels, and the grade of linearity and match of dual pots in consumer equipment (even expensive models) is not very good.

Martin's point is valid, and there is the issue of whether the position of knobs which makes one channel flat may not be quite the same as is optimum for the other.

I synthesised four fixed tilt networks and made a matching attenuator for the flat position, with shapes like those in the Quad 44 brochure. The networks use reasonably precise components and a bunch of tiny relays. My volume control is a silver stud fader with 1% metal film resistors, simply because the bits were in my junk box, and I could jimmy the law to give me evenly tempered steps as an active gain control. I don't suggest this sort of engineering is necessary, but I had the bits and I was having fun. It's done 36 years now and I haven't felt the urge to change it, except for some 22meg resistors in some input FET switches which go high resistance and need replacing about every 12 years.

My hifi is completely underwhelming and characterless. All you can hear is the music.

David

[Brigham]

There was an article in Hi-Fi News sometime in the '60s headed 'Those Knobs are Redundant'. Basically, the idea was that Hi-Fi meant 'High Fidelity', and 'Fidelity' meant that the reproduction had to be faithful to the original source.
Now, it was pointed out, you can't adjust the volume or tone of the orchestra at a concert, therefore...
It was somewhere between concrete loudspeaker cabinets, and using a redundant fireplace chimney for a Baxandall bass set-up.
Hi-Fi was great in those days!

[sp10mk11]

I have always found the better the equipment the need for tone controls diminishes, portables, basic record players etc benefit without a doubt from them, but on really good gear I don't find they improve anything, like a dirty window some said yes I agree with that, it is like bringing a picture more into focus with good gear, but it is all fun in its own way.
Gary

[Hartley118]

Sometimes I guess that we use tone controls to diminish nasty colourations in poor speakers. If your gear is free of such nasties, maybe the ear adapts to it more readily - as it does to an unfamiliar concert hall.

Though many supposedly flat and tone-control-free systems used to need the lively colourations of a Linn turntable to increase the pleasure of vinyl playing!

[bikerhifinut]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

I must say I've never been able to hear any difference between tone controls switched out and in on an amp which has this facility (I own one, a Rotel RA-930AX). That doesn't mean no difference is there of course. There might be inverse audiophile snobbery going on

I have had the same experience as you Paul, and you know I am an Audio enthusiast so I hope between the two of us the observation has some weight?
I refer again to RW's comments that PROPERLY designed tone controls shouldnt alter the signal to any detectable degree. (when set to flat).
A.

[vidjoman]

Many years ago when I worked on the shop floor selling Hi if we always tried to keep tone controls set to flat. Our main background listening was always to use certain speakers and input sources, which amp we used was almost irrelevant, provided it was of good quality. Some setups were tiring to listen to after a few minutes, so we would switch back to our favourites when the customers had gone. We did sell some budget gear, but only demonstrated when asked. Often this resulted in the customer expressing dislike and buying something better.