Hi-Fi debate time - Tone controls - yeah or neh?

Raider · 17 Nov 2006 at 20:08

I had this discussion with my father the other night. The jist of it went:

Me - "I'd like to upgrade my amp sometime soon, but have you noticed that once you go past £400 you hardly ever get tone controls. The music is always "Direct" in effect. Maybe this is better because you hear the music as the artist wanted?"

Dad - "That's all well and good, but everyone has different ears, and it's rare that studio engineers will master the CD in the most perfect form, that should never be altered. I like to have the option of tweaking bass and treble to my own tastes"

As I'm sitting here now, with my Arcam CD72 CD-player and Arcam Alpha-One Amp, I realise that both the bass and treble are boosted a fair way. And if I switch the amp into Direct mode, the music just sounds so flat to my ears. It may not be "pure", but the extra bass and treble add so much for me. Plus i'm listening to Steely Dan's "Gaucho", so no album on earth has had more effort put into it to make it sound perfect

I'm thinking that if I buy a better amp (maybe the Roksan Kandy III), the sound will be that much better that I won't need the controls.. but the fact remains that surely it's better to have the option to alter the sound to suit your own ears?

So opinions?

pany · 17 Nov 2006 at 20:59

I like tone controls, my set up is nothing like as good as yours, post-divorce present to myself will sort that out.

I think unless you have the same acoustic walls and the same components as the studio you will never listen to it, as the artist intended. I tend to alter my controls on a track-by-track basis as well, just to get the sound as I like it.

marl · 17 Nov 2006 at 21:37

I think you're dad makes a good point and in essence i'd agree with you that it would make sense to have the option of tone controls "to alter the sound to suit your own ears."

I've spent a small fortune on Hi-Fi over the years and like you have found that above a certain price point amps with tone controls are virtually impossible to find. At Hi-Fi shows I've spoken with a few manufactures/designers, of more expensive products.

Consistently they argue that tone controls add distortion and colourations to the sound that they can hear so that is why they don't put them intom their products.

Indeed my last 2 pre-amps did'nt even have a balance control - again , as the designers would say, in the interests of sound quality as some feel they degrade the sound.

Raider · 17 Nov 2006 at 23:20

Are there any good pre-amps with tone controls out there that can buddy up with a reasonably priced power amp?

tom_nieto · 18 Nov 2006 at 00:13

MetA · 18 Nov 2006 at 01:16

This was debated decades ago in Hi_Fi News and Review.

.. the outcome ? That tone controls are needed to account for the ROOM.

If you can afford to alter the room then you dont' need tone controls.

Yes they introduce distortion but once you're 25+ you don't hear most of it in blind tests

Raider · 18 Nov 2006 at 09:21

MetA said:
This was debated decades ago in Hi_Fi News and Review.

.. the outcome ? That tone controls are needed to account for the ROOM.

If you can afford to alter the room then you dont' need tone controls.

Yes they introduce distortion but once you're 25+ you don't hear most of it in blind tests

In my opinion the benefit of tone controls far out-weighs any tiny amount of distortion that's introduced.

So are there any "good" amps out there that I could upgrade to? Maybe a better Arcam?

arcamalpha · 18 Nov 2006 at 12:52

Some of the mid range Arcam amps are excellent. I've got an Alpha 9, wich shares some internals with the current Diva A90. It gives a very warm sound with deep bass. However, Arcam kit isn't into high speed punchy stuff.

The Alpha One amp is good, but will lack drive. Have you considered changing yours speakers to something that's lighter on the amp? Perhaps they're not the best for your room....

Worth sampling some different combos before changing your amp. I upgraded from an Alpha 7 amp to the Alpha 9, but better-chosen speakers made a bigger difference.

9designs2 · 18 Nov 2006 at 20:49

You tend to find the better the system gets the less the need to hide it's short comings and failings with tone controls. A well matched amp and speakers fed with a good signal, and the speakers suitable for the room and the listeners personal taste, will not need any tweaking, nor will it sound "flat"

Much of this in the set-up, getting speakers placed correctly in a room is where most people fall down.

I've not had tone controls for over 20 years !!! and have never felt the need for them.

So get some dems of kit, and find what you like, and don't worry about tone controls.

daz · 19 Nov 2006 at 00:34

Sometimes due to constraints such as neighbours or not being able to listen at the required volume requires adjusting of the tone controls so as to reduce the bass or to balance out the sound.

If you can always listen in a perfect room without fear of disturbing the neighbours etc then the tone controls would not be needed... alas that is not the case for most of us.

Raider · 19 Nov 2006 at 10:36

daz said:
Sometimes due to constraints such as neighbours or not being able to listen at the required volume requires adjusting of the tone controls so as to reduce the bass or to balance out the sound.

If you can always listen in a perfect room without fear of disturbing the neighbours etc then the tone controls would not be needed... alas that is not the case for most of us.

That's a good point. I'm sure with decent sized floorstanders, a fairly hefty amp and a decent CD-player you could get a great sound. But you'd probably have to drive it well to get the quality.

I often listen to music past 11pm, and loud isn't an option!

Bill101 · 19 Nov 2006 at 18:17

I've done without tone controls for the past 25 years and not missed them. In the early days they may have been needed and the ones fitted to Quad pre amps were some of the best (they called them 'slope controls'').The trouble is once you get a good system together they really do sound artificial.

9designs2 · 19 Nov 2006 at 19:48

Raider said:
That's a good point. I'm sure with decent sized floorstanders, a fairly hefty amp and a decent CD-player you could get a great sound. But you'd probably have to drive it well to get the quality.

I often listen to music past 11pm, and loud isn't an option!

Sorry that's complete rubbish !! tone control have nothing to do with listening volume, one the best low volume speakers I've owned was the Linn Keltik, great mother of floor standers with large isobarik bass drivers, they moved air so easily I could listen at so much lower volumes without loosing bass or quality.... They actually sounded better in my room at lower level, as I was struggling to control the bass at mid volume, though loud was just awesome !!

Try some horn loaded speakers for low volume bass, with larger drive units.

chaparral · 19 Nov 2006 at 20:03

9designs2 said:
Sorry that's complete rubbish !! tone control have nothing to do with listening volume,,

9designs2 said:
They actually sounded better in my room at lower level, as I was struggling to control the bass at mid volume,

But if you had tone controls...You could turned down the bass at mid volume,

MetA · 19 Nov 2006 at 20:05

9designs2 said:
Sorry that's complete rubbish !! tone control have nothing to do with listening volume,.

erm whoever told you that was talking rubbish.

The human ear is NOT linear across volume and frequency range.

squiffy · 19 Nov 2006 at 20:21

Even though tone controls are not dependant on volume, I've found speakers sound better when they're at a decent level. At "background" level they do sound very bass light.

Some decent AV HT pre-amps use volume offer "loudness" feature, at lower volumes bass boost is applied, at higher volumes it's disabled (not a on/off but gradual the bass boost drops off)

My Hi-Fi gear doesn't have tone controls. It doesn't even have balance.

9designs2 · 19 Nov 2006 at 20:49

chaparral said:
But if you had tone controls...You could turned down the bass at mid volume,

No because the issues was due to standing waves at key frequencies, which would require narrow band equalisation to compensate for room based resonances.
The speakers are actively driven which does allow gain adjustment on the bass amp, and to adjust the lower extension point.... which I pulled back to 40Hz, form a possible 20Hz, to help the problem.
Tone controls only allow a broadband "slope", normally crudely, which would not of helped.

MetA said:
erm whoever told you that was talking rubbish.

The human ear is NOT linear across volume and frequency range.

True, but what I'm saying, just because you listen a low volume doesn't mean you "NEED" tone controls, I've not found the sound "lacking" just because it's lower volume, and having and crude bass/Loudness boost doesn't sound balanced.....
Do you then adjust it for every volume setting, and every CD ???

A well balanced system, correctly setup doesn't have need for tone controls.

By all means have them if they make you feel comfortable

assuming you can find a good amp with them fitted !

heavy-rotation · 19 Nov 2006 at 20:52

Personally I use my amp (NAD C350) with "tone defeat" on, but having the controls is occasionally useful to reduce bass to avoid irritating others. I don't think I'd miss it too much if it wasn't there though, I don't feel the need to adjust how my system sounds usually.

If you get an amp without tone controls and find you wish you'd had them, you could get a "proper" EQ and do it that way perhaps...

Raider · 20 Nov 2006 at 20:38

The problem is, if your amplifier doesn't have tone controls, and you've had it for a while, then isn't it a case of "you don't know what you're missing?"

I'm not saying the amp doesn't sound good, but if it had tone controls, maybe it could be adjusted to sound even better to your ears? I mean if I played a CD with my current amp in "direct" mode it'll sound great. But if I switch on tone controls and then go back, it'll sound flat again.

DRZ · 21 Nov 2006 at 17:15

Have you seen the effect on the frequency response that filters like the ones you find cheaper (say, under £1000) have? My preamp doesnt have tone controls. What it does have though, is a damn flat frequency response.

Some people seem to be forgetting that the aim of the game is to get the signal from the source of your choice to your ears with as little distortion as possible. Actively distorting the signal seems a little... backwards to me.

If you think your room is terrible, sort your room out. If you think the recording/mixdown is terrible and think you can do a better job than the person that did it, get into the industry now and earn millions! Ultimately, the artist in question took the decision to release that record in the state that it arrived in your player.

As for equal loudness contours being mentioned above, its worth noting that at any given phon level (up to silly high SPLs for the time being), low frequency response is dire. Changing the frequency output at low frequencies may well reduce the energy in those octave bands but perceptually at least, you are not going to affect the "volume".

P.S. Volume is such a crap word for describing loudness. Loudness is measured in decibels, volume is measured in litres.