Tone control

[bodhi]

Two other pieces of perceived HiFi wisdom were
1. source first - spend disproportionality more on the front end. That is so backward in my experience , unless perhaps we are talking specifically about vinyl playback.

2. Spend 10% of your budget on cables

I routinely read and heard these silly things in dealers and in magazines. I am grateful to finally be better informed and as you rightly state, to have the technology to measure for myself in my room.

Both of those recommendations have only one purpose: to increase sales.

Still, if measurements would become the accepted way to decide on hifi electronics purchases then the whole business would crash and burn spectacularly. The rest of hifi shops would be out of business as well as most of manufacturers specializing in hifi electronics. The hobby itself would get pretty boring for most as you basically buy the best speakers you can afford and that's it. It might even be that people would quickly realize that after something like 1k€ the differences between speakers and subs are not that big in usual listening conditions.

In a way, to have this hobby we kind of need people believing in snake oil.

 

[Willem]

The boutique manufacturers would go under, but not mainstream ones like Yamaha, I would think.

 

[dualazmak]

Tone control or relative gain control, in DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio system....

I have been implementing safe and flexible on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control in my multichannel project by intentionally using HiFi integrated amplifiers dedicatedly and directly (eliminating all the LCR-network and attenuators) driving each of the SP drivers; each of the main volume dials of integrated amplifiers can act as relative gain (tone) tuning controller. In this case, I never use the "tone controller" of each of the integrated amplifiers.

My posts here and here on my project thread would be of your interest on what I mean by "safe and flexible on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control". My post here would be also for your reference.

Let me share here just one diagram for your easy understanding at a glance;

As you can see, I can do the relative gain (tone) control in;
1. DSP software EKIO's Fq zone gain control
2. Multichannel DAC OKTO DAC8PRO's analog output gain control
3. Volume controller of the HiFi integrated amplifiers

In my daily audio listening sessions, I usually keep 1. and 2. untouchable in their standard values, and I do the safe on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control fine tuning by 3. Generally speaking, such fine tuning on-the-fly would be within plus/minus 3 dB from my standard gain value shown in the above diagram.

And the standard best tuned total Fq response of my latest system at listening position is like this;

 

[bigpilot]

What I can't find anywhere is how to use tone controls, especially if you only have two (bass and treble).

Experts say you need tone controls to overcome the deficiencies of your speakers and room acoustics. But how do you set them? Do you just play around with them until its sounds "good"? Is there an objective way of doing this?

 

[Robbo99999]

What I can't find anywhere is how to use tone controls, especially if you only have two (bass and treble).

Experts say you need tone controls to overcome the deficiencies of your speakers and room acoustics. But how do you set them? Do you just play around with them until its sounds "good"? Is there an objective way of doing this?

It helps to know what exactly the tone controls do for your particular device in question. It all comes down to frequency response. If you have experience with frequency response graphs of speakers or headphones and have got involved with EQ then you will know how it will sound once you find out what exactly the tone controls do for your particular device. If you don't have experience then it's best to make sure you've got tone controls in the bass & treble that have been measured here on ASR and they're deemed to be good tone controls, at which point you'd "just" fiddle with the tone controls until it sounds right. In terms of manipulating ideal bass & treble tone controls I'd probably dial in the bass first and then dial in the treble until I was happy with things like symbols & high hats (& "S" speech sounds) for the treble. (The goal of tone controls is to make the overall tonality balanced, but in my experience if you dial in your headphone & speaker EQ optimally then it makes almost everything sound within the bounds of OK to Great depending on track, which is where you want to be - so I don't bother to use Tone Controls from track to track or albumn to albumn.)

EDIT: Tone Controls will not overcome deficiencies in speakers (& room acoustics). They might help, but they're too broad ranging to get in there with a scalpel and fix things - that's where parametric EQ is used to fix headphones & speakers to eek out the full potential of the speaker or headphone in question. Tone controls are broad, you can rarely fix headphones or speakers with just a tone control.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

What I can't find anywhere is how to use tone controls, especially if you only have two (bass and treble).

Experts say you need tone controls to overcome the deficiencies of your speakers and room acoustics. But how do you set them? Do you just play around with them until its sounds "good"? Is there an objective way of doing this?

Tone controls are usually very coarse controls. You can't change the frequency at which they begin to have an effect. Room correction requires fine control of frequency, the Q of the filter and the gain or attenuation. So tone controls can not be used to manage room behaviours.

They can sometimes be useful for tweaking a recording that's a bit harsh or a bit bass light.

 

[Doodski]

Tone control or relative gain control, in DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio system....

I have been implementing safe and flexible on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control in my multichannel project by intentionally using HiFi integrated amplifiers dedicatedly and directly (eliminating all the LCR-network and attenuators) driving each of the SP drivers; each of the main volume dials of integrated amplifiers can act as relative gain (tone) tuning controller. In this case, I never use the "tone controller" of each of the integrated amplifiers.

My posts here and here on my project thread would be of your interest on what I mean by "safe and flexible on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control". My post here would be also for your reference.

Let me share here just one diagram for your easy understanding at a glance;
View attachment 296462

As you can see, I can do the relative gain (tone) control in;
1. DSP software EKIO's Fq zone gain control
2. Multichannel DAC OKTO DAC8PRO's analog output gain control
3. Volume controller of the HiFi integrated amplifiers

In my daily audio listening sessions, I usually keep 1. and 2. untouchable in their standard values, and I do the safe on-the-fly relative gain (tone) control fine tuning by 3. Generally speaking, such fine tuning on-the-fly would be within plus/minus 3 dB from my standard gain value shown in the above diagram.

And the standard best tuned total Fq response of my latest system at listening position is like this;
View attachment 296463

You are amazing!

 

[Platypus20]

I believe that the judicious use of tone controls can occasionally be beneficial. I use a stereo system with no computer connection, so no EQ, I go from the source to Benchmark preamps and amps to the speaker and occasionally use a Schiit Lokius as a tone control for very boomy or shrill recordings, about 95% of the time it out of the system. For I’m using if for, it works perfectly.

 

[witwald]

What I can't find anywhere is how to use tone controls, especially if you only have two (bass and treble).

Accuphase have a nice diagram showing the effects of tone controls in one of their amplifiers. It is evident that the bass control works on frequencies below about 400Hz, while the treble control works on frequencies above about 2.5 kHz. There is, of course, a lesser effect between 400Hz and 2.5kHz when the relevant tone control is being used.

As an example of usage, we can hypothetically set the bass tone control to give a maximum boost of +2dB, while setting the treble tone control to give a maximum cut of –2dB. For small amounts of tone control action, this approximates to some extent to the application of an overall linear downward tilt in the frequency response of the amplifier. This is represented by the green lian in the picture below.

The Marantz PM7003 amplifier's tone controls work quite differently. That amplifier's bass and treble tone controls are more akin to low Q parametric equalisers, with centre frequencies of 55Hz and 20kHz. The bass tone control seems to be designed not to feed too much low-frequency energy into loudspeakers below 20Hz or so, which is probably sensible.

Somewhat more sophisticated tone controls were available on the Marantz 2325 amplifier. They had switchable turnover frequencies and a midrange control, as shown in the frequency response diagram below.

The QUAD 34 amplifier had specifically designed tilt tone controls. These simultaneously worked on both the low and high frequencies. An example of their frequency response behaviour is shown below.

Experts say you need tone controls to overcome the deficiencies of your speakers and room acoustics.

To some extent that is true, but, unfortunately, simple tone controls cannot completely overcome the deficiencies that you've mentioned. At low frequencies, quite a few acoustic room modes come into play, and these need equalisation on a frequency-by-frequency basis for best results. Still, having some ability to adjust low frequency output is helpul, as it can reduce troublesome resonances that affect sound reproduction quality. At high frequencies, judicious application of some treble cut can help to ameliorate some aspects of a very "live" room, while some treble boost can help improve the perceived sound quality of a somewhat "dead" room.

But how do you set them? Do you just play around with them until its sounds "good"? Is there an objective way of doing this?

Trying different settings and adjusting to taste can of course produce useful results, which the listener can easily appreciate. Of course, different recordings may need more or less adjustment, as what sounds "good" on one recording may not be so "good" on another. I think that it is a good idea to only make relatively small adjustments with tone controls, as it's quite easy to send a lot more energy to one's loudspeakers than what they may be able to comfortably handle.

The objective way of setting tone controls is to take some measurements using a suitable microphone and software. Affordable microphones with a relatively flat frequency response between 20Hz and 20kHz are avalable, and some come with individual calibration files to improve the acccuracy of measurements.

 

[Jaxjax]

Thanks everyone for the replies, & from a few replies it seems that having tone control on an 1.5K-2K integrated amp is not a bad thing and any bad quality they may add it will not be likely to be audible.
I get the whole digital thing, I process multi track music with Protools & it's absolutely amazing in what you can digitally do with recorded music. There's plug-ins that will take a sub par recording and make it stellar in a matter of seconds with the push of a button still amazes me after years of using it.
But I really do not want to get into any digital processing programs, apps or processing add ons with my very simple 2 channel stereo. Just an FYI, the amps I'm looking at are Marantz PM8006, Cambridge Audio CXA81 & Acram SA20, don't want a class D amp & don't really know about class G the Acram uses.

I use pro analog EQ. Elysia into active dsp monitors. I have full Dirac but prefer the Elysia..go figure.
I haven't touched my EQ settings in years. Noise.? I certainly don't hear it or wouldn't use it.

 

[Jaxjax]

What I can't find anywhere is how to use tone controls, especially if you only have two (bass and treble).

Experts say you need tone controls to overcome the deficiencies of your speakers and room acoustics. But how do you set them? Do you just play around with them until its sounds "good"? Is there an objective way of doing this?

My way will not be popular around here but here it is...
Measure your system at listening position...then get it flat as possible ... then adjust to your liking for the highest % of "good to you" across the board on all playback. I can't be bothered with EQ on the fly or adjusting for the super bad recording. Mine is set for a very high % of pleasure for me across all playback in digital or analog as I haven't touched it in years & it's always on.

 

[Doodski]

Mine is set for a very high % of pleasure for me across all playback in digital or analog as I haven't touched it in years & it's always on.

Same here. I adjust for max listening pleasure.

 

[MC_RME]

+1

 

[levimax]

I recently replaced the analog active crossovers on my DIY 3 way + sub system with digital cross overs which sound great but I miss my analog tone controls (used mainly for recording compensation and low volume) so need I to figure something out.

 

[olds1959special]

Tone controls are essential for me since my speakers are close to a wall and I need to reduce bass. I may like a slight treble boost too.

 

[dualazmak]

This is a follow-up of above my post #103.

I recently re-measured/re-confirmed the Fq-SPL of each amplifier's SP-high level output as well as Fq-SPL of room air sound at listening position, using the method of “FFT averaging of recorded cumulative DSP-processed flat white noise”, in my PC-DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio setup which has flexible on-the-fly (while listening to music) tonality (relative gain) controls over all the SP drivers.
If you would be interested, please visit my post #1,009 on my project thread.

As shown in above Fig.16 and Fig.18, I do not like, I do not apply, too-much-smoothing on Fq-SPL spectrum which hides-out various room modes. I would rather prefer common smoothing factor (FFT size, in this case) throughout 20 Hz - 20 kHz which well visualizes various room modes.

Spoiler: Dr. Floyd Toole wrote...

In the end of Dr. Toole's wonderful post here, he wrote:
Don't worry about little ripples. When I see exceptionally smooth high-resolution room curves I strongly suspect that something wrong has been done. The measurement microphone is no substitute for two ears and a human brain.

And in his post here, Dr. Toole kindly wrote responding to my inquiry:
If properly done both swept tone and noise analysis should give identical answers. It is a choice. The principal difference is in the heating of the drivers in sustained tests at high sound levels - power compression. Low frequencies require longer averaging times.

 

[AdrianusG]

Without a doubt it was costs. UK designed gear was so far behind Japanese product in value, features and performance they had to do something or disappear altogether.

The Japanese had pioneered the 'tone defeat' switch, which hardcore 'audiophiles' thought was pure and somehow better. UK and US gear didn't care for bypassed tone controls (after all, they were needed!), but started to equip their gear with tone defeat functionality. Soon, the magazines proclaimed how much better it was with the tone controls bypassed. Except they never tested in and out did they? Many tone defeat circuits were designed to be just a fraction louder when bypassed to heighten the illusion.

So, all of a sudden, you weren't serious if you had active tone controls in circuit. And, it sure helped with costs. Less controls meant somehow more 'pure' amplification.

There were plenty of otherwise identical amplifiers sold to the public in the 80s and 90s where the tone circuitry was simply not populated on the PCB and a few links bypassed it. Rapturous reviews of course. The first run of Pioneer's A-400 was a stripped down A-44x model. I remember removing the cover, only to see a ton of unpopulated PCB and a bunch of links. LOL. And it cost more. We sold tons of them to stupid audiophools.

Then came the so-called "pure direct", which was, basically, removing the entire active front end and feeding the input to a pot and a high gain power stage, instead of well matched gain stages.

I totally believe you,

The better/best pre-amps or Integrated amps from Japan were already as good as transparent with or without tone controls in the way, at least they had them!
Nah, it was all about cost savings to ditch them, and the excuse for it.... the arrival of the CD

 

[jsrtheta]

Is

I totally believe you,

The better/best pre-amps or Integrated amps from Japan were already as good as transparent with or without tone controls in the way, at least they had them!
Nah, it was all about cost savings to ditch them, and the excuse for it.... the arrival of the CD

Is this your guess?

 

[AdrianusG]

Is

Is this your guess?

Yes,

Just as it is my "guess", that for instance Apple ditched the headphone plug for a couple of reasons.
a: cost savings
b: able to sell Bluetooth In-ears and Headphones.

But definitely not for the reason used at the time, (to maintain a higher IP rating)
too bad that all other brands (except a few like Sony and some others) had to follow them like sheep in that regard.

 

[olds1959special]

I need tone controls, and like them. I use the treble boost on my P4 to get my desired EQ curve.