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The use of equipment as "tone controls"

Several times in my Audiogon reading and posting over the last couple of years, I've noticed this or that contributor commenting along the lines of: "You shouldn't use your amp/cables/cartridge/whatever as a tone control."

I assume what this is supposed to mean is that there is some absolutely correct sound out there, and we ought not have audio equipment of any kind that deviates from that absolutely correct sound.

I might be able to buy into this if we were listening to live instruments (although their sound is, of course, affected by the space in which they are played, the position of the listener, etc., so is not itself "absolute"). But we're not listening to live music. We're listening to recordings. There are microphones, cables, recording equipment, mastering equipment, storage medium, etc, all of which come between us and the original sound--not to mention the taste and perception of the engineers, producers, etc. In that sense, what we hear coming out of our speakers is all illusion, anyway. And the illusion comes in quite a few "flavors." On one system I had, Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard sounded like he was in my living room. But Leonard Bernstein conducting the NY Phil in the early 60's was so shrill it made me run screaming from the room. In my current system, Bill Evans doesn't sound as "right there" as he used to (now I'm a few of rows back, yet still quite happy), but Leonard Bernstein doesn't make my ears bleed, either.

How did I work that? I experimented with different equipment. I used the equipment as "tone controls" (I guess). It's all respectible equipment: ARC, VTL, BAT, Cardas, etc. Maybe it reduced the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Bill Evans, but it increased the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Leonard Bernstein. Maybe. But who knows for sure?

We all tailor the sound of our systems to suit our preferences. What's wrong with that? And, most equipment has it's own sound character. That seems like a good thing, to me. It allows us to tailor our sound.

Now what we REALLY need is a good set of tone controls on our fancy pre-amps, so we can really tailor our sound!

Food for comment?
eweedhome
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
since all components are imperfect, they alter the signal to the speakers, and of course, the speaker itself alters the signal as well.

what this means is that components have a sonic signature.

the issue of "tone control" arises when the consumer deliberately selects components each of which affect the sound in audible ways.

a stereo system and recording is a tone altering system.
samujohn's avatar
samujohn
291 posts
 
Once the signal is converted to digital, "tone controls" are distortion free, as are the volume controls and any other desired signal processing. If you convert your CD to analog and then add these functions, as most do, you are adding lots of unnecessary distortion.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
Rather than using equipment as "tone controls" it is far more efficient to actually get a preamp with tone controls or an outboard parametric EQ.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,333 posts
 
Rather than using equipment as "tone controls" it is far more efficient to actually get a preamp with tone controls or an outboard parametric EQ.

Thanks - sometimes the obvious really does need to be stated. People who buy and trade equipment in order to make tone control adjustments are really doing it the hard way.

I don't pay a lot of attention to this in listening demos as it can always be adjusted - however, ringing, thermal compression, warm muddy underdamped bass, reflex port chuffing, uneven dispersion/beaming, breakup, poor damping and IMD/THD distortion etc. etc. cannot be so easily corrected for!
jafox
1,348 posts
 
Thanks - sometimes the obvious really does need to be stated.
Perhaps, but what is often NOT obvious is how destructive the "obvious solution" can be.

A $200-300 equalizer maybe resolve some tonality issues, i.e., peaks and valleys, but it can also destroy the dynamic contrasts and spatial queues to a point where the effort to achieve a believable result is all for not.

"You shouldn't use your amp/cables/cartridge/whatever as a tone control."
Ultimately you should do whatever works for you without losing the magic in your system's performance that you have worked hard and paid much to achieve.

There are many ways to resolve tonality problems and an equalizer might be fine for a Walmart rack system but beyond that, it would be my last option.
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