Tone Controls

headrott

treitz3 wrote: »

Now a note to those who may not know.....IME, I have found that a defeat of all tone controls bypasses circuitry and even though no tone controls were used? When defeated, the sound improved and most all aspects got clearer, smoother and more realistic. With my own audio journey at least.

Now, when I finally got a pre that had no tone controls whatsoever? That's when the real sound came in to fruition. With proper amplification [and a little bit of tubes in the mix...], my sound whether it be frequencies or overall sound has improved dramatically.

My point is that though some of you may consider tone controls as an improvement, when you reach a certain point in your audio journey tone controls can be detrimental to the end result as to what hits your ears, instead of a perceived improvement.

Happy listening either way.

Agree with the above 100%.

steveinaz

There's 2 reasons to use tone controls:

1. Equipment or room shortfalls
2. Poorly engineered recordings (overly hot treble, ect)

Used correctly, and of good design, they can help some limited situations, but they shouldn't be a way of life--or used because you have a tonal sweet tooth. #1 above can be addressed, #2 is a little tougher to get around, but I would say that maybe .5% of my music library is so out of whack, tonally, that it could possibly benefit from the use of tone controls.

mhardy6647

Tone controls are of the devil.

98Badger

It really comes down to personal preference just like everything else in this hobby. When I first started, I used tone controls and EQ all the time. After upgrading my speakers, it became less necessary (to me). I was worried about going to a dedicated preamp without tone controls a while back, but as it turns out, I don't miss them at all. It always seemed like when I fiddled with the EQ to fix a particular song or type of music, it would mess things up for other songs. I'll be the first to admit this could be the result of adjusting the wrong frequency bands. Now, I doubt I'll go back to either EQ or tone controls.

Cpyder

Let me know if this is true: If a recording is already clipped, adjusting the EQ cannot restore any data outside of the clipped zone. The sound waves will still be cut off and all you'll end up with is a more quiet clipping sound. This picture should demonstrate what I mean:

heiney9

Cpyder wrote: »

Let me know if this is true: If a recording is already clipped, adjusting the EQ cannot restore any data outside of the clipped zone. The sound waves will still be cut off and all you'll end up with is a more quiet clipping sound. This picture should demonstrate what I mean:

Asked an answered in post #4. You can NOT eliminate clipping if it's part of the recording, unless you have the master recording, very expensive and sophisticated software and a lot of knowledge. Even then depending on the recording it may not be able to be saved.

LessisNevermore

heiney9 wrote: »

Asked an answered in post #4. You can NOT eliminate clipping if it's part of the recording, unless you have the master recording, very expensive and sophisticated software and a lot of knowledge. Even then depending on the recording it may not be able to be saved.

Actually, that depends on when the clipping occurred. If it happened (as it usually does) at the mastering stage, then yes, it can be corrected, by re-mastering. If it happens at the recording stage, it's game over...no fixing that, ever.(short of re-recording the clipped section)

I can think of one recording in particular, where a vocal line got distorted, not because of riding the fader too hot, but because the voice was so powerful, it literally distorted the microphone diaphragm. It was an otherwise perfect take, so it was kept. The distortion sounds like an added effect, unless you know what it is, and are listening for it.

heiney9

LessisNevermore wrote: »

Actually, that depends on when the clipping occurred. If it happened (as it usually does) at the mastering stage, then yes, it can be corrected, by re-mastering. If it happens at the recording stage, it's game over...no fixing that, ever.(short of re-recording the clipped section)

I can think of one recording in particular, where a vocal line got distorted, not because of riding the fader too hot, but because the voice was so powerful, it literally distorted the microphone diaphragm. It was an otherwise perfect take, so it was kept. The distortion sounds like an added effect, unless you know what it is, and are listening for it.

Less, I assumed he was talking after the fact about a consumer CD he purchased and wants to "unclip" at home using an eq/tone controls. Not at the mastering level. If you see his other posts, he's a young college student who is still learning the ropes of audio.

Let me guess Dream Theater - Burning My Soul

Or maybe it's Lines In The Sand

H9

LessisNevermore

heiney9 wrote: »

Less, I assumed he was talking after the fact about a consumer CD he purchased and wants to "unclip" at home using an eq/tone controls. Not at the mastering level. If you see his other posts, he's a young college student who is still learning the ropes of audio.

Gotcha.

heiney9 wrote: »

Or maybe it's Lines In The Sand

Ooooh, you're good.:eek::D

Mon40CSMM10

I recently added a passive subwoofer to a secondary system, and my tests show that there is a valid and necessary use for both the bass and treble tone control adjustments. Otherwise, the passive subwoofer may provide too much boomy bass and the satellite type mains may not be able to project enough through that boomy bass.

Secondary system in use:

* 6 ohm passive subwoofer (originally from a cheap Venturer home theater system but the integrated receiver/DVD player had broken). Connected to the receiver's B-speaker outputs, positive speaker wire to left output and negative speaker wire to right speaker output. Scosche Low Pass crossover also attached to the positive wire.

* Technics SA-GX170 stereo receiver.

* KLH TW-90B 8-ohm satellite mains. Scosche XOHP High Pass crossover is also attached to the positive wire of each of the satellite main speakers.

(Note: The use of the Low Pass and High Pass crossovers helps ensure a smoother transition from the mains to the subwoofer, for music and also 2.1 channel movie usage. Although these are typically car audio components, their use in home audio seems legitimate as well.)

Tone control adjustments (center position is dial pointer at 12 o'clock):

* Bass dialed all the way down to between the 8 o'clock and 9'o clock position. This reduces how low the subwoofer can reach but also removes the boomy quality of the front firing/rear ported passive subwoofer.

* Treble is increased slightly to between the 12 o'clock and 1 o'clock position.

This is typically a lower volume setup in a secondary room (it rarely gets turned up past 2 out of a maximum of 20 on the volume dial), so it's more important for the system to sound clear at lower volumes and have a relatively full frequency range instead of the subwoofer being able to hit really hard and really low.

So, that's my justification for usage of tone controls.

Cpyder

heiney9 wrote: »

Less, I assumed he was talking after the fact about a consumer CD he purchased and wants to "unclip" at home using an eq/tone controls. Not at the mastering level. If you see his other posts, he's a young college student who is still learning the ropes of audio.

Let me guess Dream Theater - Burning My Soul

Or maybe it's Lines In The Sand

H9

Yeah, I don't own a recording studio... yet.

dougy

Personally, I wish more two-channel gear had good tone controls like back in the good ol' days. And to make it even better, they should be remotely controlled. As long as they can be bypassed, what's the down-side, other than the cost? Quality parametric EQ can be a real room tamer, too.

As for the distortion tone controls add, I've never heard it, unless you are talking about driving your amp into clipping because of the boosted level -and that's not a fault with the EQ circuit. What I have heard, is hiss from some tone control and EQ circuits, especially if much treble boost is used. And sometimes, even with the contols at the neutral positions, I've heard increased noise. So of course that's always a bad thing.

Still, tone controls have their place and can be very useful tools. After all, we all have recordings that have too much or too little bass or treble. A little boost or cut can make it much better sounding and isn't that what it's all about?.

hearingimpared

dougy wrote: »

Personally, I wish more two-channel gear had good tone controls like back in the good ol' days. And to make it even better, they should be remotely controlled. As long as they can be bypassed, what's the down-side, other than the cost? Quality parametric EQ can be a real room tamer, too.

As for the distortion tone controls add, I've never heard it, unless you are talking about driving your amp into clipping because of the boosted level -and that's not a fault with the EQ circuit. What I have heard, is hiss from some tone control and EQ circuits, especially if much treble boost is used. And sometimes, even with the contols at the neutral positions, I've heard increased noise. So of course that's always a bad thing.

Still, tone controls have their place and can be very useful tools. After all, we all have recordings that have too much or too little bass or treble. A little boost or cut can make it much better sounding and isn't that what it's all about?.

While I agree with your sentiments for the most part. There is a reason that high end gear manufacturers for the most part did away with them. I believe that room treatments would better tame bass and treble problems. I sometimes wish I could boost my bass response but the reason for that is there are some null spots and trapped bass response in my speaker side corners. I'm working on some room treatments of my own to help this along.

Fongolio

I listen to a lot of older music on vinyl from the 60's and 70's and have found the eq'ing done at mastering is all over the map. I found that original releases are generaly better mastered than subsequent releases. I find tone controls very helpful for compensating for bad or less than top notch mastering. What I don't understand is why some engineers drastically alter the eq'ing of some great originals. For newer music and digital in general I rarely touch my tone controls but for older stuff I find them essential.

Ok, fire suit is on. Flame away.

PS...Robert Ludwig masters on vinyl and Steve Hoffman on digital are some of the very best to my ears. Set tone to defeat and enjoy.

ben62670

KISS More stuff in the signal path the more that the SQ is degraded. When I first started messing around inside higher end gear I was shocked to see how few a component was in there.
Ben

hearingimpared

Fongolio wrote: »

I listen to a lot of older music on vinyl from the 60's and 70's and have found the eq'ing done at mastering is all over the map. I found that original releases are generaly better mastered than subsequent releases. I find tone controls very helpful for compensating for bad or less than top notch mastering. What I don't understand is why some engineers drastically alter the eq'ing of some great originals. For newer music and digital in general I rarely touch my tone controls but for older stuff I find them essential.

Ok, fire suit is on. Flame away.

PS...Robert Ludwig masters on vinyl and Steve Hoffman on digital are some of the very best to my ears. Set tone to defeat and enjoy.

You mean Fire Retardant Suit!!!:D You're dead on with Ludwig and Hoffman. There are several companies that do a bang up job like those two fellas.

reeltrouble1

Tone Controls drool
never forget though
Tubes Rule.

that's it.

I am RT1

who put the pigweed in the mulligan stew????

reeltrouble1

btw this one echoes.

RT1

Hillbilly61

My amp has tone controls, but the knobs do not sport my finger prints. IMHO the three band tone controls that come on most units are too crude to be of much use.

Back when vinyl ruled, there were a lot of equalizers around too. The best ones, 10 or 12 bands, served a purpose of equalizing the speakers to the room particulars. For example, if the room has a lot of hard surfaces, the tweets may be toned done a bit to cut back on undesirable reflections. The best equalizers came with a pink noise generator and mike to assist with calibration. Some self calibrated.

Like others said here, you cannot equalize music that came clipped or otherwise distorted. Garbage in = garbage out (only louder!).

reeltrouble1

balance controls were also useful back in the day for TT as the grooves could be quite a ride for the stylus and it was not uncommon for it to ride left or right of center.

RT1

hearingimpared

reeltrouble1 wrote: »

balance controls were also useful back in the day for TT as the grooves could be quite a ride for the stylus and it was not uncommon for it to ride left or right of center.

RT1

That is correct but the improvements in stylus technology i.e. line contact stylus and fine contact stylus have made this a past necessity.

In my best Mexican bandit voice, "I don't need no stinkin' balance control!"

BTW "tone controls drool, tubes rule" WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

concealer404

I heard that tubes WERE tone controls.

hearingimpared

concealer404 wrote: »

I heard that tubes WERE tone controls.

They can be! Rolling, rolling, rolling on the tube express.

sucks2beme

Most built in tone controls are completely useless. Even better ones have their limits. Like others have noticed, adjusting for something I want normally
will do bad things in ther places. The car is a different story. Hard to
reposition speakers there!

reeltrouble1

Old Addage from Old Guy........................an audio signal can only be degraded by any device within its signal path, at best it might pass relatively unscathed. Tubes do change the signal, love those little electrons and getters and such.

RT1

SCompRacer

AudioFilet wrote: »

If you use tone controls, does it make you a bad person??

No, it's more an issue of poor judgement.:D

Hey Joe, if I have a balance problem, I just lean right or left.

pploeser

I don't see anything wrong with using tone controls to compensate for less than ideal room acoustics or speaker placement... or even poor sounding recordings. After all, why not use them to make your music sound the way you like it? That's what artists and recording engineers do in the studio right?

Having said that, I do agree that you can't use tone controls to completely resurrect characteristics that have been stripped from the original recording.

reeltrouble1

I am not sure if an analogy between an artist and an audio reproduction device is a comparison of note. The pots in the controls further degrade the signal on its trip. Do you have any experience with audio gear developed without tone controls?? Any thoughts on why certain manufacture's make sure to include tone defeats on some of their gear?? Just asking, as you say, you can use them all you want if it makes you like your system.

RT1

heiney9

Tone controls add unecessary circuits which in turn create noise which in turn ultimately do more harm than good. Even the so called "direct" button or buttons that supposedly defeat the controls are no good as they add the same type of noise and distortion as the controls themselves.

Speaker A/B switches are evil as well. It's all about what trade offs you are willings to make in your particular situation and what you want to accomplish in the end.

For me I want the simplest, most revealing, highest resolution system I choose to afford. There are drawbacks to this kind of system, no two recordings ever sound alike, poorer recordings meticulously show their flaws but the big reward is well recorded music sounds spectacular!!!

Not everyone enjoys so much truth in their systems.........to me the truth is the most important, even if the truth is hard to listen to at times.

H9

Hillbilly61

pploeser wrote: »

I don't see anything wrong with using tone controls to compensate for less than ideal room acoustics or speaker placement... or even poor sounding recordings. After all, why not use them to make your music sound the way you like it? That's what artists and recording engineers do in the studio right?

Having said that, I do agree that you can't use tone controls to completely resurrect characteristics that have been stripped from the original recording.

I don't disagree. Equalizers are the tool for the job. They adjust the volume per frequency range much more finely than the two or three knobs on an amp can ever do.