Tone Controls

Just to add my twopence worth ...

I believe that tone controls were originally included primarily to compensate for differences in recordings. The reason that they were taken out was because certain amplifier manufacturers made a big marketing point about 'spending the money' on better components and circuitry instead. Pretty soon, amplifiers without tone controls became trendy and eventually tone controls became a symbol for low quality amps.

However, there's no reason why tone controls shouldn't be included in addition to high quality circuitry and components and, provided there's a cancel/bypass switch (à la Quad), there shouldn't be any degradation whatsoever.

Except of course that compensating for differences in recordings is rarely worthwhile or even a good idea.

However, if I was designing the perfect preamplifier I would compensate for room resonances at the bass end and I would allow for compensation for speaker voicing at the top end. Speaker designers choose differing treble roll-off characteristics which 'place' you closer or further away from the band.

I would therefore include parametric or digital equalization for the bass and a fairly conventional old-fashioned treble control for the treble. All with a bypass/cancellation switch of course.
 
Hi,

Uncle Ants said:
Ok. I know in theory why so many modern amps don't have em - extra stuff in the signal path degrades the signal - but don't you think sometimes they'd be useful?
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The tone controls traditionally found on HiFi Gear are completely and utterly useless. They cannot help if your problems are down to room issues. They cannot help if the tonal balance of the recording is off. Why? Too blunt an instrument. The Quad "tilt" control has some use in re-balancing overly bright or dull recordings, but even this will bass & treble control added does not allow a musically sensible re-equalisation of recordings.

The only "tone control" I came across that made musical sense is the Cello Palette, where the "tone control" was actually a 6-Band equaliser with different filter parameters and adjustment range for each band.

Modern studio digital equalisers (like the Behringer DEQ 8024 & 2496 -read my Behringer DEQ 8024 review in EnjoyTheMusic.com here ) can often be operated in a manner similar to Cello palette.

Uncle Ants said:
Is there any way they could be implemented in a system without buggering things up?
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Yes, it is possible, but not cheap. Commercial "home studio" grade digital EQ's require a lot of modification to offer true "high end" sound capability and serious commercial "High End Studio" EQ's (such as the EAR Valve EQ, the Manley Massive Passive and others such as well as top grade studio digital EQ's like the Weiss Media one) cost more than a pretty penny, but are pretty sonically transparent with controls neutral or if not at least make music sound good... :D

Ciao T
 
I used to have a Linn Kolektor pre. The tone controls were useful if I play some small label indie stuff where the recordings were not that good. Nowadays, I use an av amp with tone controls to play recordings like that. Of course there are more expensive (and politically correct) type of tone controls around - cables :D
 
I would never buy an amplifier without tone controls. ok most of the time they are bypassed but now and again I put the bass knob to 4 0 clock position and a massive fat bass ensues, coloured yes but fun and still highley listenable so stuff the audiophile snobbery.
 
DaveJ said:
I would never buy an amplifier without tone controls. ok most of the time they are bypassed but now and again I put the bass knob to 4 0 clock position and a massive fat bass ensues, coloured yes but fun and still highley listenable so stuff the audiophile snobbery.
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Hah :D Like your style.
 
anything in the signal path will deteriorate the sound. Tone controls are OK as long as are relay switched out of the main signal path.
 
gregf said:
anything in the signal path will deteriorate the sound. Tone controls are OK as long as are relay switched out of the main signal path.
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True , that is why most of the time I have source direct switched in for serious listening, but its nice to know they are there ,in fact some rock recordings I have sound better with a bit of bass boost giving a 'tubby' sounding low end which balances the aggresiveness out of the recording. It may be classed as colouration by some but who cares.
 
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DaveJ said:
True , that is why most of the time I have source direct switched in for serious listening, but its nice to know they are there ,in fact some rock recordings I have sound better with a bit of bass boost giving a 'tubby' sounding low end which balances the aggresiveness out of the recording. It may be classed as colouration by some but who cares.
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I think you have it summed up, there is no reason you cannot have both options. Tone controls are not colouration or distortion regardless of what people with little speakers think..
 
Anex said:
No. They're analogue filters so they're going to do something bad somewhere. Is there a specific problem you have? Tuning it out with other stuff is usually better. Generally costs more but its better in the long run.
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If that was really true, then we would be totally farked before we even put the record/CD in the deck.
All the music we listen to through our hifis goes through multiple stages of analogue filtering from the mic pre through to the RIAA EQ (if it's a record).
It really isn't a question of complexity making things sound worse, there is no reason why this should be the case when it's done well.
Of course, done well is not something you can take for granted in the wacky world of hifi.
 
Course its true, nothing can recreate a perfect impulse response as that would require infinite bandwidth and for the thing to not really exist in time. Obviously you have to have some analogue filters, but imo the less of them you have the better. You aren't going to get the theoretically perfect response but I prefer to try to get closer by minimise component count (where possible). Tone controls are dispensable.
 
Anex said:
Tone controls are dispensable.
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In the real world, in real rooms, real venues and real recording studios this simply isn't true IMHO. I'll just agree to differ on this :)
 

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