Seems like a simple answer due, but yours is (per usual) more complete and well-presented. Thanks again, I really enjoy these brief yet informative lessons!
Here's a perspective I haven't seen exactly below. Nobody seems to talk about preferences having to do with musical styles. A while back I was really big into EQ and would set parameters based on certain "curves" - like the pop/rock curve "U" which emphasized the bass and highs, but brought the midrange down a little. That was reversed for jazz. And I think doing EQ or using the simpler treble and bass controls is fine if you like it. But I changed my listening philosophy a few years back: I decided I wanted to hear as closely as possible what the artists, engineers and producer had in mind - what THEY thought the best sound for a specific recording would be. Certainly not all recordings receive this level of artistic/audio attention, but many do, so I want to do as much as I can to reproduce this quality as perfectly as possible without enhancing it for my own taste. Do I think this is a better way to listen? Heck no - it's a preference - but it's where I've most noticed the difference between "casual" and "audiophile" grade systems.
If all one did was listen to perfect recordings, with a great speaker setup, then sure, you probably wouldn't need tone controls. However I listen to several artists that make less than stellar recordings, that could use a bit more treble, or ect. Tone controls are Fantastic For bad recordings. My current system does not have tone controls, but I do have my eyes on schitt audios tone control.
I could be totally wrong, but I was under the impression that tone controls were first included to equalize recordings from different record companies. The RIAA standard equalization curve did not always exist, and before 1957 each company had their own eq curve. Tone controls were used to compensate for that. Once records were standardized, a single "tone control" in the guise of the RIAA equalization circuit built into every phono stage did the trick. By this time, tone controls were expected, and didn't start to disappear until the "high end" was born in the 1970's.
The bass and treble tone controls are very underrated these days! Nobody seems to use it anymore but they are there for a reason! Use them! Not only for cheap speakers!
Carlos, turn the tone control to where it sounds the best for YOU. You are not beholden to the audio snobs that demand nothing but, "flat" frequency responses. Your hearing is unique to you. You will hear frequencies & their levels different to others. Your speakers will also produce frequencies & their levels which are different to others. Play and adjust your music with the eq / tone that YOU enjoy the most. Flip the birdy to the those that suggest otherwise.
My thoughts exactly! I do prefer the bass to at 50Hz and the treble at 20KHz for fine tuning. A lot of amps have 100Hz for bass and 10KHz for treble and I don't like that. It results in the bass/mid-bass being too boomy and the treble too tinny. True... We all hear differently.
Absolutely. As you age, you lose your sensitivity to the higher frequencies. To be able to supplement those frequencies to hear them at proper volume is essential. The other reason is that not all loudspeakers are created equal. As the human ear is sensitive to different frequencies on every head, so are speakers. Especially those of lesser quality. The tonal adjustment will allow the sound to be balanced, provide control & tweaking to bring out the best sound for that person, for that speaker, for that volume level. This sound may not be the best for another person in the same room listening to the same audio. That's the nature of audio. Too many factors influence the volume, quality & output levels.
Bullshit, you seem not to understand what a treble control does, it amplifies the high notes, if one doesn't hear high notes, one will never hear them, under any circumstance, other words, you can amplify as much as you like...hahaha. Besides the point, the better amps, simply don't have these idiotic controls!
Bass and treble as well as loudness controls all have valid uses and SHOULD be in the pre-amplifier stage of any quality audio system. They are mostly needed at lower listening levels which are required when you live in a duplex or multi-family unit.
Nope.. They should be thrown out. All good systems don't need the bass and treble control. I get great sound at very low and up to very high levels without adjusting. Infact I have the adjustment turned off in the menu.
@Larry Niles Nope.. Ebery single audiofile I have ever talked to says the same. Adjusting it fucks up the sound and it does not sound like it is supposed to
@My Name To what advantage? Destroying the sound? It's not really luck that you don't need to use them.. I have never used them and have had alot of systems in different rooms etc. Everytime I have used the bass and treble adjust the sound just sounds really of and wrong. That's because the sound is not flat anymore and sounds unnatrural
@@Oystein87> I'm with ya bro, though we're going to be in the minority. I think they're more about vanity controls. We like to feel WE are in charge and WE are in command of and WE are the conductors our environment. Give us dials and control buttons, we now feel we have musical POWER at our finger tips. That's why they are there. We are now flying a jet fighter. Leave the controls flat? Then we feel like were aren't doing anything. Can't have that! We HAVE TO be the sound mixer in the control room. We are part of the production machine. We believe the creative and engineering spirit within us compels us to turn the damn knobs even if it's for the worse. After all we paid for those damn knobs and levers---so use em, turn em left and right, slide them up and down, we now have as the song goes "the power of the music of the night." We use salt and pepper shakers at restaurants in many cases simply because they're there. We're supposed to we feel---because there they are. I believe if we were at a live concert and each seat had some kind of orchestrestral control module we would all be turning control dials "to get it right" -------we think. If we ever get to musical heaven and everything is sonically perfect, and someone brings up an old equalizer then there WILL BE adjustments to the sound----just because. If a system needs that many adjustments then how good can it really be? As they say---- it's like trying to put lipstick on a pig.
I categorically disagree. In my opinion, (that is what this is based on experience), everything is true except for implying that tone controls (two-way, three-way, EQ, Etc) are useless and should be discouraged. I grew up with them and learned how to EQ. I believe part of the reason tone controls are not found on a lot of "high-end" gear is lack of interest through fear. The fear of not knowing how to use them properly. I also believe that it is part of false marketing by cable companies. Tone controls are still useful today. They need not be feared. Say you have a recording that just isn't quite right subtly in some frequency. A slight tone adjustment can bring things close to right or at least a bit better. Granted, not many recordings need this. A bigger example would be headphones. There is no such thing as great sounding headphones in my opinion. Almost every pair whether $10 or $100,000 is woefully unbalanced in tone with either a far too strong boost or quick drop at some crucial frequency. I'm not saying they are inherently evil even though I tend to call them "a necessary evil". I have 5 pairs myself. Turns out my least expensive pair sounds closer to balanced than the rest. Using an amp with tone controls on board (or off) covers a multitude of sins. In my opinion if there is anything that needs tone controls it is headphone amps. I have both vintage gear and modern high-end gear and both my vintage and high-end preamp have tone controls two-way and three-way. True, 99% of the time I leave them flat or disengaged. I use full range speakers and have maybe one or two recordings that might need a little help. The trick is properly using them. A lot of folks just don't know how. One thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't always follow to boost a frequency that seems weak, sometimes it is better to cut and adjacent frequency to get a well balanced sound. Also, adjustments are usually only required to be minuscule, not extreme. Lastly, no, you can't use cables to EQ your system, that has never worked and never will. I know around here that is heresy, so be it. I don't fear reality or true science, but that is partly why we don't see tone controls so much anymore. The cable makers and proponents want you to believe that the more you spend on cables the better overall your system will sound in tone and balance. Nothing could be further from truth. As for "Loudness" buttons, never used them, never needed to, no surprise those are gone. That is the mileage I get, as always, everyone else's will vary.
Well no controls is fine if you have good recodings, but if the track is a live performance recorded on a phone and the top end is brutal, I'm screwed. Preset EQ is limited in choice and buried in menus. I miss tone controls. Better speaker tech nowadays is appreciated, but not all sources are created equally. I'm a musician and that often times puts me at odds with excepted audiophile culture at times. That to me is the mystery.
I agree. This idea that flat is all you need is very presumptuous. Not all speakers are the same. Some accentuate certain frequencies more than others. Not every room is the same either. There should always be some sort of tone controls for fine tuning.
5 лет назад
A live track recorded on cell phone built in mic is pretty much equivilant to recording something with a potato. Have you ever looked into the compression applied to how they record?? LOL it's brutal. There may be rare exceptions..and I'm not talking about an 'interface'. Just use your computer as your 'tone controls' since you're recording digitally anyways.. pass the audio through the computer with one of the thousands of free apps that can shape the sound. Maybe you ditched your laptop for an ipad..then nothing I can say.
Robert Sparkman “I’m a musician and that often puts me at odds with excepted audiophile culture” This is absolutely the case. The musician makes a recording using a $15 road/gig beaten instrument cable laying on the floor and getting stepped on. Audiophiles need a $30k cable on cable risers held perfectly still in order to reproduce the sound.
Hell I've heard recordings people claimed were some of the best in the world and still didn't like the sound I refuse to accept it's just not for me if I can do a little tweaking and get it sounding how I want it.
That helps after Steve Guttenberg said we should use them when we have them. All the equalizing I have on my Adam speakers is set completely flat and on my Vincent bedroom amp there's a bypass button.
miepmiepzoefzoef I’m happy that you brought up that you have them but don’t use them, because at least we could buy the same preamp, and both be happy.
I was a staunch EQ defender, as well as being intoxicated by a lot of bass that hit my chest. After I had the experience of acoustically treating my listening room, and knowing how to position the speakers for a better stereo image, I could understand the big mistake I made over many years when using the EQ. Of course this is not absolute in all auditions, psychoacoustics is an individual issue, and there may be masterings that leave something to be desired.
At one point I would use (for bad recordings) a VST plugin called FabFilter Pro Q3. Fantastic digital EQ. I decided to start playing around with acoustic room treatment and fell in love with the process. With a few weeks of messing around, I was able to achieve the best tone I've ever had, along with the best imaging...with every recording. I'm truly quite amazed by this. I wish I would have studied acoustic engineering.
Tone controls are to make up the differences between the recording ie the mixing and where it’s played! You’ve not seen that they are coming back for that very reason?
I disagree... Even music from same artist and album can often have completely different mastering when re released years later or on another format and in those cases bass and treble buttons can come in handy to make it sound more to your liking or like the original release. Then you also have room differences, speakers and amplifiers.. Even if you have two so called high end amplifiers, the sound is usually audible different. So I say use EQ to make it sound good to YOU.
Dial up the bass and treble! Lol. They help adjust for room Acoustics, and low volumes. Every amp is different. Every speaker is different. By adjusting the bass and treble controls is kind of like dialing up two frequency points on an Equilizer. It was an attempt to help accentuate the frequencies that are hard to hear at low volumes, or hard for your am and speaker combination to fill a room with a decent balance of sound at low volume or in a large room. Simply put, turn them up until everything sound as good to your ears as you can get. It's how we perceive music. Some people can hear better than others. My father had pitch perfect hearing until he lost the hearing in one ear. After that he dialed up the bass on everything, because he had a hard time hearing the lower frequencies. And what Paul said!
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio If you are looking for a "purity" - you will miss on sooooo many good songs due to a lack of it (read: recording, production, inherited recorded noise etc.)! Sorry but it IS the "audio snobbery". Get real to the source and use tone controls if need a bit of adjustment(s)....
It is snobbery. Recording aren't perfect. You know that. You want someone to listen to something lacking in bass or lacking in highs? Quit being a snob.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio What kind of purity?? Pretty much any re release of any artist sounds different anyways due to remastering. Should you spend thousands just to find which version suits you the most, when a little change of EQ can do the trick?? And even among high end amps there are alot of variations to the sound, as well as differences caused by the room. What would be best??? Spend a fortune redesigning the room and using a different amp for each song or just changing the EQ a litte to your liking??? There just is no magical speaker or amplifier that will sound perfect with every genre of music and in any space.
I have a wonderful modern high end tube amp with tone controls (!) It happens that I don't choose to use them but it's nice to have the ability to shape the voicing a wee bit if I ever need to (unlikely). In my view the benefits outweigh any notional disadvantages by a long way. With so much talk about tailoring the sound for the room, tone controls may help to optimize this, without the need to change system at all. And, as ever, the performance will depend on the quality of implementation. Another point I would make is that the Marantz Model 7 tube preamp, one of the most sought after components in hifi history, still selling for big money on the used market, features those "evil" bass and treble controls too. Imagine, for a second that, to your ears, your treble is a shade reticent, or overbearing from your speakers. This may not be bad speaker design but the result of interaction with a challenging listening room environment. Your options are limited if you have no way of adjusting it. Cables are an expensive crapshoot and, actually, tone controls - or changing preamp tubes - might be the very best options.
Indeed. For me, with no room for floor placement I've had to limit myself to a near-field desktop, with all the pros and cons involved. So, I use the Foobar EQ for slight adjustment. I love it. Sounds great.
@@trog69 the purist approach was something that the British manufacturers used as a product differentiation with Japanese brands back in the day, and yet it's the Marantz 7/8 that most people would love to own out of all vintage gear, complete with the preamp's myriad of controls of one kind or another. The early Quad amps all had tone controls and even later models featured sound shaping controls too. I therefore think that the assertion that tone controls are bad news needs to be spoken about in the correct context.
With all due respect for Paul I digress ... all recorded music has been through insane equalization at the whims of a recording engineer sitting on a n-track console. I don't see issues with adding your own equalization to correct any "flatness" or quirkness response your speaker might have. We are all crazy about purity but what is considered pure is just an interpretation of a sounding engineer that could have been drunk that day. I have an old SAE equalizer that has made my old B&W 603s2 come alive in ways I thought wouldn't have been possible. Short of spending 5 figures on speakers, thoughtful equalization along with tone controls can help a lot !
You still need EQ or simple Bass and Treble controls when listening to all kind material from internet where people set sound like they like (or to compensate for bad sounding speakers or headphones that they used) so every song or video from internet sounds different so you need to "correct" this bad sound with EQ.
I find it more handy to have the bass and treble control integrated on my system. As I often switch genres with my music choice, having them makes my listening more enjoyable....
buy schiit Loki $149, graphic equaliser, has a low and high mid-range adjustment 4 bands. they're amplifier is very good as well. if you want to go for a professional graphic equaliser what is worth doing in any system, Is the dbx studio equipment, is a good choice second-hand . you might want to consider DSP mini or something similar, that is a graphic equaliser as well but adjust wideband not just frequency. have to disagree with Paul that bass and treble. the sprout is made with a dip in the mid-range that's why having problems.
I struggled many long years to tune any set of my DIY speakers to cooperate with zero - zero positions in few amplifiers and no, I just couldn't get it right. Always had to mark with stickers "right" settings. Eventually it worked only with specific volume position and of course speakers had premeditated characteristic. . Now I developed excellent simple speaker sets which thanks to extra accurate tuning are at last in synergy with all in "zero - zero" but my three amplifiers have original deep correction in loudness . Fourth is Luxman L210 equipped with deep "loudness" but only in bass range - for sopranos not provided at all . . Playing that amp I must keep sopranos knob at max up , it is not controlled by volume. and it is just right when I listen to moderate levels..Long time ago I discovered that speakers tuned by me never ask me to change bass/sopranos knobs, no matter fidelity of recording. Exists only one exact position which could be fixed permanent. .
Hi, I love your videos! I hope that EQs never disappear even on modern systems, because I like to use it. It can make my favourite music (metal) sound even more mighty when I boost the bass and treble and cut the mids (slightly to a lot, depends). Having a system that sounds like the musicians want their music to sound like is great, but I think an EQ can be a great tool to fit the music more to the listeners taste. Good music isnt always flat ;)
I think their philosophy is if the recording isn't pristine then they aren't gonna listen that isn't an option for us that listen to metal though we would be missing out on too much great stuff.
Flat speakers with an amp with tone controls or flat amp and speakers with a sound signature? I prefer flat speakers and tone controls just because I listen to so many genres. But if you tend to listen mostly to one genre get a flat amp and toned speakers to suit your style.
I need bass control to make bass volume lower and turn total volume higher to hear better middle and high freequences without anoying myself and my neighbours and without moving walls in my flat by loud bass. So I do not need any expensive new amplifier and can be satisfied from vintage one as better for me.
Paul, I think it's time you named your Q & A sessions (at least the one's concerning basic Audio System questions "Audio System Basics" (Only for the most Basic questions of course)
so the answer is to keep on buying new gear until you get it right. sorry love your videos, but this is why i have vintage equipment. the b&w speakers are a little bright (in this room), all you have to do is tone down the treble. etc.
dennis waske Yes, keep on swapping out pieces and cables and with dumb luck you MIGHT hit on the perfect combination. Or, pack up all your pieces and take them to your local store and have them swap out pieces. Or, force yourself to listen to a system that doesn’t sound right to you and stop complaining. Or, buy an equalizer or a preamp/receiver with the kind of control that agrees with you.
dennis waske I would’ve agreed wholeheartedly, except I just got a call from technician who is working on my mid 70’s McIntosh amp; he’s having problems finding certain transistors that no one makes anymore, and can’t even get them from McIntosh.
I have a set of fairly cheap price speakers and it has bass and treble control. I can much clearly hear the vocals and higher frequencies when I crank up the treble slightly, and I've been doing so because it just sounds better. But I wonder what it actually means the "full range/fidelity" speaker. Is it me who's listening wrong? or the speakers are inadequate?
If the treble adjustment satisfied your ears, then it's adequate. But if you still want improvement then you need to fix the weakest link. Music media, Audio Player, amplifier, cables, speakers, room, etc. You can audition these equipments at audio stores. I think, if you have everything right, you won't need to touch the treble. The music would sound natural and clear and any tweaking would make it sound unnatural but to each his own standard. Even with a tight budget, this can be done.
Hey Paul, i suppose that tone controls can also be used depending on the room configuration, even if the speakers and amplifiers are great. In my case, there is no wall behind the speakers, and i don't get the same bass as in a more standard setup with a wall behind the speakers. So i use a little bit of Bass boost to gain back the bass of a standard speaker placement. Could you maybe talk about that in a future video? Thanks for the great daily videos!
if i am not mistaken tone control only affect a small part of the frequency, example: 70hz bump, you wont get a smooth output from speaker using tone control, unless you have dip in response in example 70hz. pro monitors use more of a shelf gain, that is much more useful.
Bass boost today comes from a subwoofer with a volume control. Its another way instead of having to use a bass tone control. You will still need bass boost.
My new $15k speakers are a bit hotter than I’d like, due to the nature of my listening room. Should I keep buying speakers, taking a fairly sharp loss at each new set, or should I use a treble control to knock the highs back a bit? Also, at what good speakers cost, would it be better to just build a new listening room? Seriously Paul? And frankly, you don’t need tone controls, or loudness to fix the above problem, you just need a filter in the transcription software in the DAC or a DSP to do this. Most systems still need a subwoofer, and that’s adding 1-2 more speakers to your speakers to get full range, let alone tone control. So that’s messing with the creators vision, isn’t it?
Now you’re just joshing Scream. They’re are plenty of $15k speakers that do not sound all that great. But you do give me the opportunity to bring up another important factor or two. I use an OPPO 205 as my source and DAC. The OPPO lets me adjust the "attack" of my music, from the horn sounding Brick Wall, to the horn taming Linear Phase Fast. I appreciate this, I’ve only had to set it once to accommodate my family room full of furniture rugs and curtains, but greatly improves the sound quality "at my ears," the only place that matters. Then there’s the 63 year old too many rock concert ears which start rolling off at about 8khz and disappear at 15khz. I fixed that problem temporarily with a Schitt Loki 4 band eq, which I will upgrade later. You are right about my speakers though, only $6.3k. But then they’re 3.7i's, so I don’t feel bad about that either. I do like PS's new speakers though, from what I’ve heard in Paul's demo with good cans you can hear the definition even over limited bandwidth. They will be worth more than my base line set above. But we're talking electronics here, and my personal perspective is still valid in my cynical post. I'd just like the producers to make products for the people that use them, and let them decide if they want to use the feature or not.
Larry Niles When you start creating young audiophiles to replace us geezers, I’ll keep my opinions to myself. This is called a "comments" section for a reason. Would anyone die if PS added controls to their Stellar Gain Cell preamp if they had a direct pass through for purist, or offered as a module for those of us who's hearing or listening room weren’t up to snuff, or do we have to suffer in musical purgatory?
Larry Niles Also: As conventional audiophile logic goes, don’t mess with anything, but it‘ OK to add a subwoofer if you need one. Therefore, if logic is symmetrical, why doesn’t someone manufacture a rear/upward facing tweeter with a variable crossover and volume control? And no, I ve already made my own, so I don’t need to start a company to buy one, just the ones to bump my 8khz and above so I don’t blow my ribbons.
Let them stay in neutral and don't use them. I habe disabled mone in the menu of the amp. I NEVER use bass and treble adjust or a equalizer. It ruins the sound
Answer me this why luxman and accuphase have tone controls ...? And they are top noch systems . I see that all or better almost all people try to convice others that u dont need them and use tubes or always stay flat well what works for me is that my luxman l509 when i play vinyl some pressings dont have bass while the same band in another pressing has a lot so... i use my tone controls simple as that and i like to colour my music.
The Luxman CL-38u is a tube preamp with a tone control that is seen in high regard by HiFi aficionados for all the different variables you speak about from recording to recording.
That's awesome that you found something you enjoy doing and a means to do it. Just not for me. The good news is we each have our opinions of how to float our boats. It'd be awful if we all agreed.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio- This is why I have access to two preamps. I own a McIntosh C52 preamp with "tone controls" and a BHK preamp. I can some-what quickly hook-up which-ever one I want to use at that time and in the long run enjoy both of them.
Keith... Not the same problem when its a dynamic EQ with a linear boost. Barcus Berry with their Sonic Maximizers includes that kind of bottom end boost which makes the bass sound very real and exciting on a good system. I only use the "Lo Control" for the bottom balance on my small speakers. Very open sounding with pleasing realistic bass. YMMV.
Help with ear fatigue!!! I have the vintage JBL 4312 studio monitors. I love the sound; however, I feel the harshness after about 20 minutes. What adjustments do you recommend for the speakers or parametric EQ. Should I also consider chosen a different tweeter? Other equipment include: Sony N80ES power amp, Sony TAN 1000ES preamp, and Marantz CD 63SE player.
I do not agree with this at all.. Bass and treble controls are a must! If i listen to my system 'Flat' it sounds bloody bad.. Adjust the tone controls and add EQ it sounds 'Live' vastly better so the theory of 'Your speakers are poor if they sound bad wired up to a 'Flat' amp' is nonsense.. You could spend thousands on a system and it could still sound bad listening 'Flat'. Did we not hear in a previous vid that the B&W Nautilus speaker the flatest speaker ever made sounds bad!! And the BBC's perfectly flat studio monitor sounded so bad they created the 'Dip' all this is EQ..
Yep, you're correct! Even expensive ("adequate") speakers need adjustments from time to time, depending on the type of music, how it was recorded, and the listening area. For example, most recent pop music today sounds good with a little bass boost, but most 70s and 80s pop music sound better with the bass turned down a bit. Same goes with different speakers. Some speakers sound too bright to some but preferred that way by others. Paul loves to glorify KEF speakers, which most sound great for acoustic music or classical but sound noisy or busy with most rock music from the 60s through the 90s, but again sound good with most modern electronic music. Then again, some recordings have rather dull high-end, but others have a piercing or unnatural highs. The reason I prefer a flatter frequency responce with many of the speakers I buy is because they are the easiest to adjust accordingly. Overly bright speakers often sound lacking in some mid-range frequencies when you turn the treble down to compensate. Every speaker and in combination with different electronics sound different, which needs to be adjusted to suit the listener/area. Many costly speakers and electronics are colorful in their own ways, which the tone balance changes with different music types, recordings, and listening areas. Same goes for different volume levels of each given variable and it's not the same direct correlation from each brand or model of speaker. Missing or having too much high or low octaves can take away a lot of the listening pleasure for me. Tone control for different preamps is different depending on whether it's 'tilting' or 'shelving' the tones. The fact that most HiFi preamps don't have tone controls today is a bit regressive in my opinion. But, I think this may be one of those occurrences where Paul the HiFi businessman is overshadowing Paul the audio enthusiast.
@@longmuskox4194 I've noticed that with even some 20+ year old KEF's I have, they are great speakers but they don't fit my listening habits without a little adjustment, I can't afford to just swap them out though so that's where tone controls come in.
Agree. Spend 6 years to find the perfect speaker. Didnt find it. I am sensitive for too much bass and treble. So I found a warm speaker, Dynaudio Evoke, but warm speakers often have a warm wooly bass. And if I found a speaker/amp with tight bass, it was often bright in treble. So I think I am going the EQ-route now.
P.S. (That still cracks me up!) Anyway, how about this for positive feed back: Would it be a good idea to add tape in and out jacks on the bottom end of a lines audiophile preamp? Some audiophiles do still have reel to reels, and some of us less than worth music lovers could add and aux tone control unit at reckless disregard for the printing on the backplane? I have an old Holman Apt preamp that has a tape and processor, but then it also has a plethora of other controls on the front to boot.
I wanted to know how exactly bass and treble worked, as in how the capacitance is wired to increase or decrease or if different sections had the own sized caps {large for bass and small for treble}. Understandable explaining it to newer generation. I Far Far far prefered plan ole Bass and treble and "loudness" {button which made it all come through with more bass and treble all round}. As you could get the sound you wanted simple. With graphics your pissing around with many songs and a studio has hundreds of bars to slide {I assume} and a-trained ear to tune - and the time to tinker and get it right, but some gizmo clowns decided 5 or 7 equlizer bands to play with at home somehow surficed, which is like taking an axe for surgery - which doesnt help. Hence Im looking to go back to bass and treble. With a near blown amp {cutting out at higher vol} Im thinking of building - and see plenty of simple mosfet quickies on yt but i do want a quality sound.
I disagree with this myopic view of tone controls. Paul only addresses 1 issue: speaker inadequacy. But what about the room?? A room with tile or hardwood floors is going to sound WAY different than one with carpets & drapes. What about the source? I like POPULAR music, not necessarily audiophile label drivel. Some music needs a bit of EQ. And then there's the F-M loudness curve. Paul very logically explains what it is, and states that it is a REAL thing, and then summarily dismisses tone controls and says "we don't encourage their use...." So if i'm listening at low volume, must I suffer with less bass because of some audiophile "ideals"? I love tone controls, but don't always use them. It's also true that most of them are poorly implemented, and don't sound very good.
if you use eq to fix music then you just allow them to make bad recordings. fix the problem at the source. a bad room won't get fixed with tone control or eq of any kind, its not just a volume issue but phase problem and reflections. you still have it at different volumes just normalized but still bad.
Yeah Miro. Forcing yourself to listen to music at home that sounds like crap will somehow stop labels from pushing out badly mixed albums. The real question is do tone controls also enable carpenters to build homes that aren’t perfect for listening? Maybe forcing yourself to listen to music at home that sounds like shit will also force carpenters to build better houses!
Bass and treble control or tone control was not created for poor speakers it was created for personal preference period . So is Paul calling JBL . Altec lancing voice of the theater , Klipsch, Cerwin Vega and seeburg and infinity poor speakers ? I think Carlos didn't do his homework . Sprout 100 doesn't have tone control ? So what does Carlos mean ?? I guess volume is tone control ? I think Sprout is a good budget amp that is very speaker specific . Hey Carlos do you want to know what heat control does ?
@@Bannockburn111 lol, im asuming the guu asking, like everyone else in the planet knows what treble and bass control are for and that he was asking how do they really work, which Paul, as usual, didn't went to.
Yeah, I was also waiting to hear what the f happens behind the knobs! Resistor, impedance, simplified pot, gain.. How does the bloody thing work? And why isn't 0 same as tone defeat?
Yes treble and bass controls are needed because source material isn't all the same. I have recordings with too much bass. I have recordings with too little treble. I don't want some know it all telling me I don't need tone controls. Paul, quit being so stuffy. What sounds good to the listener is the important thing.
but tone controls don't work like that, they just gives bumps and dips, and the chance that you need just that is close to zero. they can be made to work better but they dont on hifi gear, pro monitors does this better.
@@sudd3660 I have a AR SP3, an AR VT100 and a pair of Klipschorns. You know source material sometime or maybe often are lacking in quality for various reasons. Sometimes I listen in tone defeat mode. Sometimes not. I don't understand this high end audio mentality of flat response. Do we get a flat response from our recordings? Hardly as some engineer eq's what we hear. Bass and treble controls may not be the best thing for audio but until there's something better I use them and enjoy what I listen to.
Encapsulated, confined, restricted, all words to describe what you hear if you listen to a mid 70s Pioneer receiver. But if you just connect a proper preamp to the receivers power amp input you will discover what it all means because you will have just solved most of the cause of the problem. Their power amps were decent but the preamps sucked.
Agreed - to a point. The Pioneer preamps sucked, but if you were lucky enough to have a pre-out, amp-in jumper set you could substitute the preamp for a better one. The point I mentioned is that I had a Pioneer SA-8100II integrated amplifier that had an awesome phono preamp. It was so good that when the amp finally quit due to a power supply failure I removed the phono stage, built an external power supply for it, and mounted it in a hollowed out Pioneer SA-6500 chassis. It was great until I went moving coil and got the Schiit Mani for my phono stage.
I always thought the difference was Treble is for people who appreciate quality sound with crisp quality that boosts sharpness, while bass is used by annoying idiots to be more annoying...
Never touch bass and treble / tone adjust🤮 On my amp I can turn the tone adjust off so it can't be adjusted. If anyone needs to adjust these then the system is not good enough. That easy👍
@Larry Niles Because of customers that where dumb enough to use them in the past and gets cranky when they take them away. But hey.. If you like unnatrural sound then use them. It sounds like crap though
Wrong! Your listening room may cause serious dips and peeks messing with the sound of your system. That happens most time because people just don’t have proper room treatment. So I would say in 99% of cases it’s perfectly normal to use any sort of equalization like tone controls or even dsp to suit your sound to your needs. I have myself made measurements and applied equalization to remove some nasty room effects, and I have now a great sounding system when before, I was just hearing noise.
@@realsigsegv And that's why you eaily correct those problems WITHOUT using bass and treble control... DSP is a better solution. Bass and treble adjust only ruins tje sound. I have never had a optimal room and still I get optimal sound without adjusting bass or treble (since that would not fix the sound anyway) so I stand my ground and repeat what I said before..
@Strange Faction Tone controls ruin the sound no matter what amp, speakers etc. DSP can help sound. Tone controls should never be used to compensate for other problems. Of you say something else you don't understand how tone control works. Sorry but that's the reality. I never use tone controls, and have 1 system and the sound is the way it is supposed to no matter what I al listening to. No audiophile with respect for themselves and for music uses tone control on the amp.
In general they are too coarse a control for someone buying PS priced audio equipment. Can you really have this discussion without including room effects?
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
“ Your system may be a little in adequate” he says standing next to the greatest pair of speakers in the world.😜
With subwoofers! They have volume that can be adjusted. That is having a tone control of the highest order.
I thought that was just a weeeee bit awkward my self.
Great observation there TS
Seems like a simple answer due, but yours is (per usual) more complete and well-presented. Thanks again, I really enjoy these brief yet informative lessons!
Here's a perspective I haven't seen exactly below. Nobody seems to talk about preferences having to do with musical styles. A while back I was really big into EQ and would set parameters based on certain "curves" - like the pop/rock curve "U" which emphasized the bass and highs, but brought the midrange down a little. That was reversed for jazz. And I think doing EQ or using the simpler treble and bass controls is fine if you like it. But I changed my listening philosophy a few years back: I decided I wanted to hear as closely as possible what the artists, engineers and producer had in mind - what THEY thought the best sound for a specific recording would be. Certainly not all recordings receive this level of artistic/audio attention, but many do, so I want to do as much as I can to reproduce this quality as perfectly as possible without enhancing it for my own taste. Do I think this is a better way to listen? Heck no - it's a preference - but it's where I've most noticed the difference between "casual" and "audiophile" grade systems.
I dont understand who most amps with tone control only have bass and treble. Imo you need also mids. Even my car has all three.
If all one did was listen to perfect recordings, with a great speaker setup, then sure, you probably wouldn't need tone controls. However I listen to several artists that make less than stellar recordings, that could use a bit more treble, or ect. Tone controls are Fantastic For bad recordings. My current system does not have tone controls, but I do have my eyes on schitt audios tone control.
I could be totally wrong, but I was under the impression that tone controls were first included to equalize recordings from different record companies. The RIAA standard equalization curve did not always exist, and before 1957 each company had their own eq curve. Tone controls were used to compensate for that. Once records were standardized, a single "tone control" in the guise of the RIAA equalization circuit built into every phono stage did the trick. By this time, tone controls were expected, and didn't start to disappear until the "high end" was born in the 1970's.
The bass and treble tone controls are very underrated these days! Nobody seems to use it anymore but they are there for a reason! Use them! Not only for cheap speakers!
To me they're 3 band eqs. It does the job but you can do a lot better for little money if sound fitting to the room is the issue
how do i use them
@@toriiscarlett9608turn it.
Carlos, turn the tone control to where it sounds the best for YOU. You are not beholden to the audio snobs that demand nothing but, "flat" frequency responses. Your hearing is unique to you. You will hear frequencies & their levels different to others. Your speakers will also produce frequencies & their levels which are different to others. Play and adjust your music with the eq / tone that YOU enjoy the most. Flip the birdy to the those that suggest otherwise.
well said!
Apparently we are supposed to be subject to shitty or inexperienced audio engineers instead of hearing the recording how we wanna hear it.
My thoughts exactly! I do prefer the bass to at 50Hz and the treble at 20KHz for fine tuning. A lot of amps have 100Hz for bass and 10KHz for treble and I don't like that. It results in the bass/mid-bass being too boomy and the treble too tinny. True... We all hear differently.
The older you get, the more you need a treble control.......
Thats for sure!
Absolutely. As you age, you lose your sensitivity to the higher frequencies. To be able to supplement those frequencies to hear them at proper volume is essential. The other reason is that not all loudspeakers are created equal. As the human ear is sensitive to different frequencies on every head, so are speakers. Especially those of lesser quality. The tonal adjustment will allow the sound to be balanced, provide control & tweaking to bring out the best sound for that person, for that speaker, for that volume level. This sound may not be the best for another person in the same room listening to the same audio. That's the nature of audio. Too many factors influence the volume, quality & output levels.
Just buy RF7s and you dont need treble control.......lol
@@scottyo64 or a bass control.
Bullshit, you seem not to understand what a treble control does, it amplifies the high notes, if one doesn't hear high notes, one will never hear them, under any circumstance, other words, you can amplify as much as you like...hahaha. Besides the point, the better amps, simply don't have these idiotic controls!
Bass and treble as well as loudness controls all have valid uses and SHOULD be in the pre-amplifier stage of any quality audio system. They are mostly needed at lower listening levels which are required when you live in a duplex or multi-family unit.
Nope.. They should be thrown out. All good systems don't need the bass and treble control. I get great sound at very low and up to very high levels without adjusting. Infact I have the adjustment turned off in the menu.
@Larry Niles Nope.. Ebery single audiofile I have ever talked to says the same. Adjusting it fucks up the sound and it does not sound like it is supposed to
@My Name To what advantage? Destroying the sound? It's not really luck that you don't need to use them.. I have never used them and have had alot of systems in different rooms etc. Everytime I have used the bass and treble adjust the sound just sounds really of and wrong. That's because the sound is not flat anymore and sounds unnatrural
@My Name And that is not the same as the bass and treble controll
@@Oystein87> I'm with ya bro, though we're going to be in the minority. I think they're more about vanity controls. We like to feel WE are in charge and WE are in command of and WE are the conductors our environment. Give us dials and control buttons, we now feel we have musical POWER at our finger tips. That's why they are there. We are now flying a jet fighter. Leave the controls flat? Then we feel like were aren't doing anything. Can't have that! We HAVE TO be the sound mixer in the control room. We are part of the production machine. We believe the creative and engineering spirit within us compels us to turn the damn knobs even if it's for the worse. After all we paid for those damn knobs and levers---so use em, turn em left and right, slide them up and down, we now have as the song goes "the power of the music of the night." We use salt and pepper shakers at restaurants in many cases simply because they're there. We're supposed to we feel---because there they are. I believe if we were at a live concert and each seat had some kind of orchestrestral control module we would all be turning control dials "to get it right" -------we think. If we ever get to musical heaven and everything is sonically perfect, and someone brings up an old equalizer then there WILL BE adjustments to the sound----just because. If a system needs that many adjustments then how good can it really be? As they say---- it's like trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Sprout 100 has a "Loudness" button. Push and hold the power button light will change from blue to white. When white loudness is on.
I categorically disagree. In my opinion, (that is what this is based on experience), everything is true except for implying that tone controls (two-way, three-way, EQ, Etc) are useless and should be discouraged. I grew up with them and learned how to EQ. I believe part of the reason tone controls are not found on a lot of "high-end" gear is lack of interest through fear. The fear of not knowing how to use them properly. I also believe that it is part of false marketing by cable companies.
Tone controls are still useful today. They need not be feared. Say you have a recording that just isn't quite right subtly in some frequency. A slight tone adjustment can bring things close to right or at least a bit better. Granted, not many recordings need this. A bigger example would be headphones. There is no such thing as great sounding headphones in my opinion. Almost every pair whether $10 or $100,000 is woefully unbalanced in tone with either a far too strong boost or quick drop at some crucial frequency. I'm not saying they are inherently evil even though I tend to call them "a necessary evil". I have 5 pairs myself. Turns out my least expensive pair sounds closer to balanced than the rest. Using an amp with tone controls on board (or off) covers a multitude of sins. In my opinion if there is anything that needs tone controls it is headphone amps.
I have both vintage gear and modern high-end gear and both my vintage and high-end preamp have tone controls two-way and three-way. True, 99% of the time I leave them flat or disengaged. I use full range speakers and have maybe one or two recordings that might need a little help. The trick is properly using them. A lot of folks just don't know how. One thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't always follow to boost a frequency that seems weak, sometimes it is better to cut and adjacent frequency to get a well balanced sound. Also, adjustments are usually only required to be minuscule, not extreme.
Lastly, no, you can't use cables to EQ your system, that has never worked and never will. I know around here that is heresy, so be it. I don't fear reality or true science, but that is partly why we don't see tone controls so much anymore. The cable makers and proponents want you to believe that the more you spend on cables the better overall your system will sound in tone and balance. Nothing could be further from truth.
As for "Loudness" buttons, never used them, never needed to, no surprise those are gone.
That is the mileage I get, as always, everyone else's will vary.
You Sir...
Are exactly right 👍
Well no controls is fine if you have good recodings, but if the track is a live performance recorded on a phone and the top end is brutal, I'm screwed. Preset EQ is limited in choice and buried in menus. I miss tone controls. Better speaker tech nowadays is appreciated, but not all sources are created equally. I'm a musician and that often times puts me at odds with excepted audiophile culture at times. That to me is the mystery.
I agree. This idea that flat is all you need is very presumptuous. Not all speakers are the same. Some accentuate certain frequencies more than others. Not every room is the same either. There should always be some sort of tone controls for fine tuning.
A live track recorded on cell phone built in mic is pretty much equivilant to recording something with a potato. Have you ever looked into the compression applied to how they record?? LOL it's brutal. There may be rare exceptions..and I'm not talking about an 'interface'. Just use your computer as your 'tone controls' since you're recording digitally anyways.. pass the audio through the computer with one of the thousands of free apps that can shape the sound. Maybe you ditched your laptop for an ipad..then nothing I can say.
Robert Sparkman “I’m a musician and that often puts me at odds with excepted audiophile culture”
This is absolutely the case.
The musician makes a recording using a $15 road/gig beaten instrument cable laying on the floor and getting stepped on. Audiophiles need a $30k cable on cable risers held perfectly still in order to reproduce the sound.
Hell I've heard recordings people claimed were some of the best in the world and still didn't like the sound I refuse to accept it's just not for me if I can do a little tweaking and get it sounding how I want it.
That helps after Steve Guttenberg said we should use them when we have them. All the equalizing I have on my Adam speakers is set completely flat and on my Vincent bedroom amp there's a bypass button.
miepmiepzoefzoef I’m happy that you brought up that you have them but don’t use them, because at least we could buy the same preamp, and both be happy.
I was a staunch EQ defender, as well as being intoxicated by a lot of bass that hit my chest. After I had the experience of acoustically treating my listening room, and knowing how to position the speakers for a better stereo image, I could understand the big mistake I made over many years when using the EQ. Of course this is not absolute in all auditions, psychoacoustics is an individual issue, and there may be masterings that leave something to be desired.
At one point I would use (for bad recordings) a VST plugin called FabFilter Pro Q3. Fantastic digital EQ. I decided to start playing around with acoustic room treatment and fell in love with the process. With a few weeks of messing around, I was able to achieve the best tone I've ever had, along with the best imaging...with every recording. I'm truly quite amazed by this. I wish I would have studied acoustic engineering.
pffft….why adjust tone controls when you can just replace all your cabling...….smh
Brutal!
LOL the mythical bullcrap of so called exoepsinsive cute looking gold plated hydrogen doped "audiophile" cables improving sound lives on, to funny.
@@airgliderz 🤣😆😂
Tone controls are to make up the differences between the recording ie the mixing and where it’s played! You’ve not seen that they are coming back for that very reason?
I disagree... Even music from same artist and album can often have completely different mastering when re released years later or on another format and in those cases bass and treble buttons can come in handy to make it sound more to your liking or like the original release.
Then you also have room differences, speakers and amplifiers.. Even if you have two so called high end amplifiers, the sound is usually audible different. So I say use EQ to make it sound good to YOU.
Pull up a Power Plant...make yourself comfortable.
We don’t need no steenking chairs!
Dial up the bass and treble! Lol. They help adjust for room Acoustics, and low volumes. Every amp is different. Every speaker is different. By adjusting the bass and treble controls is kind of like dialing up two frequency points on an Equilizer. It was an attempt to help accentuate the frequencies that are hard to hear at low volumes, or hard for your am and speaker combination to fill a room with a decent balance of sound at low volume or in a large room. Simply put, turn them up until everything sound as good to your ears as you can get. It's how we perceive music. Some people can hear better than others. My father had pitch perfect hearing until he lost the hearing in one ear. After that he dialed up the bass on everything, because he had a hard time hearing the lower frequencies. And what Paul said!
There is nothing wrong with tone controls . Quit with audio snobbery .most music recorded nowadays can use a little tweak
It's hardly snobbery, it's just a passion for purity and fixing the equipment problem without Band Aids.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio
Not (just) equipment, also recordings...
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio If you are looking for a "purity" - you will miss on sooooo many good songs due to a lack of it (read: recording, production, inherited recorded noise etc.)! Sorry but it IS the "audio snobbery". Get real to the source and use tone controls if need a bit of adjustment(s)....
It is snobbery. Recording aren't perfect. You know that. You want someone to listen to something lacking in bass or lacking in highs? Quit being a snob.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio What kind of purity?? Pretty much any re release of any artist sounds different anyways due to remastering. Should you spend thousands just to find which version suits you the most, when a little change of EQ can do the trick??
And even among high end amps there are alot of variations to the sound, as well as differences caused by the room.
What would be best??? Spend a fortune redesigning the room and using a different amp for each song or just changing the EQ a litte to your liking???
There just is no magical speaker or amplifier that will sound perfect with every genre of music and in any space.
I have a wonderful modern high end tube amp with tone controls (!) It happens that I don't choose to use them but it's nice to have the ability to shape the voicing a wee bit if I ever need to (unlikely). In my view the benefits outweigh any notional disadvantages by a long way. With so much talk about tailoring the sound for the room, tone controls may help to optimize this, without the need to change system at all. And, as ever, the performance will depend on the quality of implementation.
Another point I would make is that the Marantz Model 7 tube preamp, one of the most sought after components in hifi history, still selling for big money on the used market, features those "evil" bass and treble controls too.
Imagine, for a second that, to your ears, your treble is a shade reticent, or overbearing from your speakers. This may not be bad speaker design but the result of interaction with a challenging listening room environment. Your options are limited if you have no way of adjusting it. Cables are an expensive crapshoot and, actually, tone controls - or changing preamp tubes - might be the very best options.
Indeed. For me, with no room for floor placement I've had to limit myself to a near-field desktop, with all the pros and cons involved. So, I use the Foobar EQ for slight adjustment. I love it. Sounds great.
@@trog69 the purist approach was something that the British manufacturers used as a product differentiation with Japanese brands back in the day, and yet it's the Marantz 7/8 that most people would love to own out of all vintage gear, complete with the preamp's myriad of controls of one kind or another. The early Quad amps all had tone controls and even later models featured sound shaping controls too. I therefore think that the assertion that tone controls are bad news needs to be spoken about in the correct context.
With all due respect for Paul I digress ... all recorded music has been through insane equalization at the whims of a recording engineer sitting on a n-track console. I don't see issues with adding your own equalization to correct any "flatness" or quirkness response your speaker might have. We are all crazy about purity but what is considered pure is just an interpretation of a sounding engineer that could have been drunk that day. I have an old SAE equalizer that has made my old B&W 603s2 come alive in ways I thought wouldn't have been possible. Short of spending 5 figures on speakers, thoughtful equalization along with tone controls can help a lot !
I guess we are at the mercy of the whims of a recording engineer fuck us if we don't like the recording I guess? no wait I'll just use tone controls.
You still need EQ or simple Bass and Treble controls when listening to all kind material from internet where people set sound like they like (or to compensate for bad sounding speakers or headphones that they used) so every song or video from internet sounds different so you need to "correct" this bad sound with EQ.
True, unless the recording is exceedingly rare though your best is to find the ones marked "band name" followed by topic.
I find it more handy to have the bass and treble control integrated on my system. As I often switch genres with my music choice, having them makes my listening more enjoyable....
buy schiit Loki $149, graphic equaliser, has a low and high mid-range adjustment 4 bands. they're amplifier is very good as well.
if you want to go for a professional graphic equaliser what is worth doing in any system, Is the dbx studio equipment, is a good choice second-hand .
you might want to consider DSP mini or something similar, that is a graphic equaliser as well but adjust wideband not just frequency.
have to disagree with Paul that bass and treble.
the sprout is made with a dip in the mid-range that's why having problems.
I struggled many long years to tune any set of my DIY speakers to cooperate with zero - zero positions in few amplifiers and no, I just couldn't get it right. Always had to mark with stickers "right" settings. Eventually it worked only with specific volume position and of course speakers had premeditated characteristic. . Now I developed excellent simple speaker sets which thanks to extra accurate tuning are at last in synergy with all in "zero - zero" but my three amplifiers have original deep correction in loudness . Fourth is Luxman L210 equipped with deep "loudness" but only in bass range - for sopranos not provided at all . . Playing that amp I must keep sopranos knob at max up , it is not controlled by volume. and it is just right when I listen to moderate levels..Long time ago I discovered that speakers tuned by me never ask me to change bass/sopranos knobs, no matter fidelity of recording. Exists only one exact position which could be fixed permanent. .
Hi, I love your videos! I hope that EQs never disappear even on modern systems, because I like to use it. It can make my favourite music (metal) sound even more mighty when I boost the bass and treble and cut the mids (slightly to a lot, depends). Having a system that sounds like the musicians want their music to sound like is great, but I think an EQ can be a great tool to fit the music more to the listeners taste. Good music isnt always flat ;)
I think their philosophy is if the recording isn't pristine then they aren't gonna listen that isn't an option for us that listen to metal though we would be missing out on too much great stuff.
Flat speakers with an amp with tone controls or flat amp and speakers with a sound signature? I prefer flat speakers and tone controls just because I listen to so many genres. But if you tend to listen mostly to one genre get a flat amp and toned speakers to suit your style.
+ Respect .. He wants to control from AC power till your ears just like Apple with their products. But, unlike Apple he is open and ready to help.
Right. Apple sux massive donkey balls. It seems like every day I hear about some new draconian scheme from them to f*** the customer.
wow, Thanks again Paul
I need bass control to make bass volume lower and turn total volume higher to hear better middle and high freequences without anoying myself and my neighbours and without moving walls in my flat by loud bass. So I do not need any expensive new amplifier and can be satisfied from vintage one as better for me.
Paul, I think it's time you named your Q & A sessions (at least the one's concerning basic Audio System questions "Audio System Basics" (Only for the most Basic questions of course)
so the answer is to keep on buying new gear until you get it right. sorry love your videos, but this is why i have vintage equipment. the b&w speakers are a little bright (in this room), all you have to do is tone down the treble. etc.
well put!
dennis waske Yes, keep on swapping out pieces and cables and with dumb luck you MIGHT hit on the perfect combination. Or, pack up all your pieces and take them to your local store and have them swap out pieces. Or, force yourself to listen to a system that doesn’t sound right to you and stop complaining. Or, buy an equalizer or a preamp/receiver with the kind of control that agrees with you.
yep
dennis waske I would’ve agreed wholeheartedly, except I just got a call from technician who is working on my mid 70’s McIntosh amp; he’s having problems finding certain transistors that no one makes anymore, and can’t even get them from McIntosh.
I have a set of fairly cheap price speakers and it has bass and treble control. I can much clearly hear the vocals and higher frequencies when I crank up the treble slightly, and I've been doing so because it just sounds better. But I wonder what it actually means the "full range/fidelity" speaker. Is it me who's listening wrong? or the speakers are inadequate?
If the treble adjustment satisfied your ears, then it's adequate. But if you still want improvement then you need to fix the weakest link. Music media, Audio Player, amplifier, cables, speakers, room, etc. You can audition these equipments at audio stores. I think, if you have everything right, you won't need to touch the treble. The music would sound natural and clear and any tweaking would make it sound unnatural but to each his own standard. Even with a tight budget, this can be done.
Hey Paul, i suppose that tone controls can also be used depending on the room configuration, even if the speakers and amplifiers are great. In my case, there is no wall behind the speakers, and i don't get the same bass as in a more standard setup with a wall behind the speakers. So i use a little bit of Bass boost to gain back the bass of a standard speaker placement. Could you maybe talk about that in a future video? Thanks for the great daily videos!
if i am not mistaken tone control only affect a small part of the frequency, example: 70hz bump, you wont get a smooth output from speaker using tone control, unless you have dip in response in example 70hz.
pro monitors use more of a shelf gain, that is much more useful.
Sudd, you are mistaken.
Bass boost today comes from a subwoofer with a volume control. Its another way instead of having to use a bass tone control. You will still need bass boost.
I hope i also can confidently sit on my audio equipment and talk comfortable as well.😅
My new $15k speakers are a bit hotter than I’d like, due to the nature of my listening room. Should I keep buying speakers, taking a fairly sharp loss at each new set, or should I use a treble control to knock the highs back a bit? Also, at what good speakers cost, would it be better to just build a new listening room?
Seriously Paul? And frankly, you don’t need tone controls, or loudness to fix the above problem, you just need a filter in the transcription software in the DAC or a DSP to do this.
Most systems still need a subwoofer, and that’s adding 1-2 more speakers to your speakers to get full range, let alone tone control. So that’s messing with the creators vision, isn’t it?
You don't have 15k speakers, You wouldn't have that problem.
Now you’re just joshing Scream. They’re are plenty of $15k speakers that do not sound all that great. But you do give me the opportunity to bring up another important factor or two. I use an OPPO 205 as my source and DAC. The OPPO lets me adjust the "attack" of my music, from the horn sounding Brick Wall, to the horn taming Linear Phase Fast. I appreciate this, I’ve only had to set it once to accommodate my family room full of furniture rugs and curtains, but greatly improves the sound quality "at my ears," the only place that matters.
Then there’s the 63 year old too many rock concert ears which start rolling off at about 8khz and disappear at 15khz. I fixed that problem temporarily with a Schitt Loki 4 band eq, which I will upgrade later.
You are right about my speakers though, only $6.3k. But then they’re 3.7i's, so I don’t feel bad about that either. I do like PS's new speakers though, from what I’ve heard in Paul's demo with good cans you can hear the definition even over limited bandwidth. They will be worth more than my base line set above.
But we're talking electronics here, and my personal perspective is still valid in my cynical post. I'd just like the producers to make products for the people that use them, and let them decide if they want to use the feature or not.
Larry Niles When you start creating young audiophiles to replace us geezers, I’ll keep my opinions to myself. This is called a "comments" section for a reason.
Would anyone die if PS added controls to their Stellar Gain Cell preamp if they had a direct pass through for purist, or offered as a module for those of us who's hearing or listening room weren’t up to snuff, or do we have to suffer in musical purgatory?
Larry Niles Also: As conventional audiophile logic goes, don’t mess with anything, but it‘ OK to add a subwoofer if you need one. Therefore, if logic is symmetrical, why doesn’t someone manufacture a rear/upward facing tweeter with a variable crossover and volume control? And no, I ve already made my own, so I don’t need to start a company to buy one, just the ones to bump my 8khz and above so I don’t blow my ribbons.
On my amp the the bass is 1/2 and treble is 3/4 way up and when im home alone i turn the bass all the way up
Let them stay in neutral and don't use them. I habe disabled mone in the menu of the amp. I NEVER use bass and treble adjust or a equalizer. It ruins the sound
I use a Loki with my Maggie’s, you should here the bass from those if I turn it up! 😀
Lucky enough with my system that I haven't got a EQ and don't need it but I've never really found it to be that good anyway in previous systems
"I have the Sprout 100" "Good Job" Ah ah ..
Answer me this why luxman and accuphase have tone controls ...? And they are top noch systems . I see that all or better almost all people try to convice others that u dont need them and use tubes or always stay flat well what works for me is that my luxman l509 when i play vinyl some pressings dont have bass while the same band in another pressing has a lot so... i use my tone controls simple as that and i like to colour my music.
The Luxman CL-38u is a tube preamp with a tone control that is seen in high regard by HiFi aficionados for all the different variables you speak about from recording to recording.
That's awesome that you found something you enjoy doing and a means to do it. Just not for me. The good news is we each have our opinions of how to float our boats. It'd be awful if we all agreed.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio- This is why I have access to two preamps. I own a McIntosh C52 preamp with "tone controls" and a BHK preamp. I can some-what quickly hook-up which-ever one I want to use at that time and in the long run enjoy both of them.
The problem with tone controls are they are set at the wrong unmusical frequencies with a shelf EQ.
Keith... Not the same problem when its a dynamic EQ with a linear boost. Barcus Berry with their Sonic Maximizers includes that kind of bottom end boost which makes the bass sound very real and exciting on a good system. I only use the "Lo Control" for the bottom balance on my small speakers. Very open sounding with pleasing realistic bass. YMMV.
Some preamps tilt the tone rather than shelve it.
Keith, who cares? What somebody does with their audio system is none of your business.
@@emorris272 Then why are you here? Its none of your business.
Thanks grandpa ❤
What are your thoughts on SONOS products in terms of sound quality?
I want to know what speakers the guy hooked up to his Sprout. Now i must know.
My amp setting is on raw mode, sounds better with bass or treble bypassed.
Treble booster is way louder than bass boosted (good to know)
Is there a way to control base & treble on my Chromebook? Helllllllp!
Help with ear fatigue!!! I have the vintage JBL 4312 studio monitors. I love the sound; however, I feel the harshness after about 20 minutes. What adjustments do you recommend for the speakers or parametric EQ. Should I also consider chosen a different tweeter? Other equipment include: Sony N80ES power amp, Sony TAN 1000ES preamp, and Marantz CD 63SE player.
Did you find a solution?
I do not agree with this at all.. Bass and treble controls are a must! If i listen to my system 'Flat' it sounds bloody bad.. Adjust the tone controls and add EQ it sounds 'Live' vastly better so the theory of 'Your speakers are poor if they sound bad wired up to a 'Flat' amp' is nonsense.. You could spend thousands on a system and it could still sound bad listening 'Flat'. Did we not hear in a previous vid that the B&W Nautilus speaker the flatest speaker ever made sounds bad!! And the BBC's perfectly flat studio monitor sounded so bad they created the 'Dip' all this is EQ..
Agree with you 200%
Yep, you're correct! Even expensive ("adequate") speakers need adjustments from time to time, depending on the type of music, how it was recorded, and the listening area. For example, most recent pop music today sounds good with a little bass boost, but most 70s and 80s pop music sound better with the bass turned down a bit. Same goes with different speakers. Some speakers sound too bright to some but preferred that way by others.
Paul loves to glorify KEF speakers, which most sound great for acoustic music or classical but sound noisy or busy with most rock music from the 60s through the 90s, but again sound good with most modern electronic music. Then again, some recordings have rather dull high-end, but others have a piercing or unnatural highs. The reason I prefer a flatter frequency responce with many of the speakers I buy is because they are the easiest to adjust accordingly. Overly bright speakers often sound lacking in some mid-range frequencies when you turn the treble down to compensate.
Every speaker and in combination with different electronics sound different, which needs to be adjusted to suit the listener/area. Many costly speakers and electronics are colorful in their own ways, which the tone balance changes with different music types, recordings, and listening areas. Same goes for different volume levels of each given variable and it's not the same direct correlation from each brand or model of speaker. Missing or having too much high or low octaves can take away a lot of the listening pleasure for me.
Tone control for different preamps is different depending on whether it's 'tilting' or 'shelving' the tones. The fact that most HiFi preamps don't have tone controls today is a bit regressive in my opinion. But, I think this may be one of those occurrences where Paul the HiFi businessman is overshadowing Paul the audio enthusiast.
@@longmuskox4194 I've noticed that with even some 20+ year old KEF's I have, they are great speakers but they don't fit my listening habits without a little adjustment, I can't afford to just swap them out though so that's where tone controls come in.
Agree. Spend 6 years to find the perfect speaker. Didnt find it. I am sensitive for too much bass and treble. So I found a warm speaker, Dynaudio Evoke, but warm speakers often have a warm wooly bass. And if I found a speaker/amp with tight bass, it was often bright in treble. So I think I am going the EQ-route now.
P.S. (That still cracks me up!) Anyway, how about this for positive feed back: Would it be a good idea to add tape in and out jacks on the bottom end of a lines audiophile preamp? Some audiophiles do still have reel to reels, and some of us less than worth music lovers could add and aux tone control unit at reckless disregard for the printing on the backplane? I have an old Holman Apt preamp that has a tape and processor, but then it also has a plethora of other controls on the front to boot.
More tone controls, please.
Thanks😊
I wanted to know how exactly bass and treble worked, as in how the capacitance is wired to increase or decrease or if different sections had the own sized caps {large for bass and small for treble}. Understandable explaining it to newer generation. I Far Far far prefered plan ole Bass and treble and "loudness" {button which made it all come through with more bass and treble all round}. As you could get the sound you wanted simple. With graphics your pissing around with many songs and a studio has hundreds of bars to slide {I assume} and a-trained ear to tune - and the time to tinker and get it right, but some gizmo clowns decided 5 or 7 equlizer bands to play with at home somehow surficed, which is like taking an axe for surgery - which doesnt help. Hence Im looking to go back to bass and treble. With a near blown amp {cutting out at higher vol} Im thinking of building - and see plenty of simple mosfet quickies on yt but i do want a quality sound.
His amp and guitar are in the safes he’s sitting on😂
for me...its not about MY preference....I want to listen the way it was INTENDED
I've never seen a tone control without an obvious marking (or a spot where it snaps into flat)...
what frequency range are we adjusting on these bass and treble controls?
Whole range, that is my problem. I want bass mids treble knobs.
I disagree with this myopic view of tone controls. Paul only addresses 1 issue: speaker inadequacy. But what about the room?? A room with tile or hardwood floors is going to sound WAY different than one with carpets & drapes. What about the source? I like POPULAR music, not necessarily audiophile label drivel. Some music needs a bit of EQ. And then there's the F-M loudness curve. Paul very logically explains what it is, and states that it is a REAL thing, and then summarily dismisses tone controls and says "we don't encourage their use...." So if i'm listening at low volume, must I suffer with less bass because of some audiophile "ideals"? I love tone controls, but don't always use them. It's also true that most of them are poorly implemented, and don't sound very good.
if you use eq to fix music then you just allow them to make bad recordings. fix the problem at the source.
a bad room won't get fixed with tone control or eq of any kind, its not just a volume issue but phase problem and reflections. you still have it at different volumes just normalized but still bad.
Yeah Miro. Forcing yourself to listen to music at home that sounds like crap will somehow stop labels from pushing out badly mixed albums. The real question is do tone controls also enable carpenters to build homes that aren’t perfect for listening? Maybe forcing yourself to listen to music at home that sounds like shit will also force carpenters to build better houses!
@@sudd3660 How exactly does an EQ allow people that died before I was born to continue to make bad recordings?
Bass and treble control or tone control was not created for poor speakers it was created for personal preference period . So is Paul calling JBL . Altec lancing voice of the theater , Klipsch, Cerwin Vega and seeburg and infinity poor speakers ? I think Carlos didn't do his homework .
Sprout 100 doesn't have tone control ? So what does Carlos mean ?? I guess volume is tone control ? I think Sprout is a good budget amp that is very speaker specific . Hey Carlos do you want to know what heat control does ?
Probably the world's most uncomfortable $10,000 seat Paul's sitting on.
He should at least use a stadium cushion haha.
They raise and lower bass and treble it's pretty simple.
i just finished calibrating my monitor and am greeted by paul's overexposed forehead. had to do some sanity checks lol
his mic is distorted too
Lol once again Paul doesnt answer the question.
He can't answer a question when the viewer doesn't listen to what he says. I found his answer detailed and clear.
@@Bannockburn111 lol, im asuming the guu asking, like everyone else in the planet knows what treble and bass control are for and that he was asking how do they really work, which Paul, as usual, didn't went to.
Yeah, I was also waiting to hear what the f happens behind the knobs! Resistor, impedance, simplified pot, gain.. How does the bloody thing work? And why isn't 0 same as tone defeat?
bass and treble controls alone are pretty useless, however, a good equalizer and thats a very different story.
So if i have good speakers with full range, i should keep the base and treble controls to flat?
I think what people call treble could be midrange.
Yes treble and bass controls are needed because source material isn't all the same. I have recordings with too much bass. I have recordings with too little treble. I don't want some know it all telling me I don't need tone controls. Paul, quit being so stuffy. What sounds good to the listener is the important thing.
but tone controls don't work like that, they just gives bumps and dips, and the chance that you need just that is close to zero. they can be made to work better but they dont on hifi gear, pro monitors does this better.
@@sudd3660 I have a AR SP3, an AR VT100 and a pair of Klipschorns. You know source material sometime or maybe often are lacking in quality for various reasons. Sometimes I listen in tone defeat mode. Sometimes not. I don't understand this high end audio mentality of flat response. Do we get a flat response from our recordings? Hardly as some engineer eq's what we hear. Bass and treble controls may not be the best thing for audio but until there's something better I use them and enjoy what I listen to.
Encapsulated, confined, restricted, all words to describe what you hear if you listen to a mid 70s Pioneer receiver. But if you just connect a proper preamp to the receivers power amp input you will discover what it all means because you will have just solved most of the cause of the problem. Their power amps were decent but the preamps sucked.
Agreed - to a point. The Pioneer preamps sucked, but if you were lucky enough to have a pre-out, amp-in jumper set you could substitute the preamp for a better one. The point I mentioned is that I had a Pioneer SA-8100II integrated amplifier that had an awesome phono preamp. It was so good that when the amp finally quit due to a power supply failure I removed the phono stage, built an external power supply for it, and mounted it in a hollowed out Pioneer SA-6500 chassis. It was great until I went moving coil and got the Schiit Mani for my phono stage.
just make a proper Parametric EQ and be done with it. because those 2 or 3 knobs are not helping much.
I always thought the difference was Treble is for people who appreciate quality sound with crisp quality that boosts sharpness, while bass is used by annoying idiots to be more annoying...
Make the video 1.25 speed
Eu queria tanto entender o que ele está falando.
Two dislikes from that pair of speakers ;)
Tone controls are used for room correction. 😎
Umm... and source correction too! Not all recordings are perfect.
Loki.
Why I thought this was a rap video?!
I hate stupid questions like this
Well we all know that Meghan Trainor is "All About That Bass" *And not treble*
They act deceptive
Never touch bass and treble / tone adjust🤮 On my amp I can turn the tone adjust off so it can't be adjusted.
If anyone needs to adjust these then the system is not good enough. That easy👍
@Larry Niles Because of customers that where dumb enough to use them in the past and gets cranky when they take them away. But hey.. If you like unnatrural sound then use them. It sounds like crap though
@My Name It actually is that easy...
Wrong! Your listening room may cause serious dips and peeks messing with the sound of your system. That happens most time because people just don’t have proper room treatment. So I would say in 99% of cases it’s perfectly normal to use any sort of equalization like tone controls or even dsp to suit your sound to your needs. I have myself made measurements and applied equalization to remove some nasty room effects, and I have now a great sounding system when before, I was just hearing noise.
@@realsigsegv And that's why you eaily correct those problems WITHOUT using bass and treble control... DSP is a better solution. Bass and treble adjust only ruins tje sound. I have never had a optimal room and still I get optimal sound without adjusting bass or treble (since that would not fix the sound anyway) so I stand my ground and repeat what I said before..
@Strange Faction Tone controls ruin the sound no matter what amp, speakers etc. DSP can help sound. Tone controls should never be used to compensate for other problems. Of you say something else you don't understand how tone control works. Sorry but that's the reality. I never use tone controls, and have 1 system and the sound is the way it is supposed to no matter what I al listening to. No audiophile with respect for themselves and for music uses tone control on the amp.
In general they are too coarse a control for someone buying PS priced audio equipment. Can you really have this discussion without including room effects?
Did you know? Bass and Treble are opposites of each other.