I agree; Schit makes inexpensive or more expensive "equalizers", they work wonders!
I miss my Loudness Button and Tone Controls....
So I recently upgraded my system to a Rogue Audio Sphinx integrated amplifier, V2.
Prior to this purchase I was using a NAD C162 preamp, and an Emotive UA-200 amplifier.
After a month of listening, I have to say, I miss the tone controls and the loudness feature on the old NAD pre-amp, especially when listening at lower volumes. The Rogue amp sounds great when played at a minimum of 50% of its output, but at lower volumes, it just seems flat. I do use a sub (SVS SB-2000 pro, and I'm using a very efficient speaker (Zu Audio DW's).
I've toyed with the idea of buying an EQ of some sort that has a bypass so that I can boost some of the frequencies when listening at lower volumes, and then bypass when I listening at higher volumes.
Any thoughts on this? Anyone experience anything similar? I'm about to pack and sell the Rogue amp, as the cons outweigh the pros for me.
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To my knowledge, Fletcher and Munson engaged in the research that lead to discovery of human hearing discrepancies at different frequencies. Hence, the Loudness button. Personally, I would defer from an equalizer as your listening to the new system will eventually normalize and probably cease to be an issue. Best of luck. |
I own a Sansui AU 7700 a vintage marvel with sound controls sophisticated in design ( my knowledgeable repairman said so repairing all amplifiers for all his life) an a three tone control and other features like a separated filtering system with three other buttons to filter at different Hertz scale... Before Acoustic treatment and control of my room i used the tone controls with success... Not now after acoustic done right i dont use them at all... Only some filtering...... At any sound level all acoustic cues are optimal for me now in my room ... Look for some low cost acoustic improvement...Not to a new costly amplifier.... Electronical equalization is most of the times a worse way acoustic solution instead of room acoustic done right...Especially when someone EQ each of his album... 😁😊 it is a symptom of acoustic defect of his room....Then he EQ each album because EQ is a plaster on a wound not a therapeutic...And most EQ choices apply to a restricted set of albums to compensate for the speakers/room bad acoustical synergy... |
If you only stream look at the RME adi-2. RME has multiple presets for the EQ to choose from. It has a loudness button for time listening at low volume which boost bass/fullness and clarity. Has bass and treble buttons also balance all the above on the remote. Plus other things I’ve never taken the time to learn how to do. |
Most high end audio products do not have tone controls. Any additional circuitry introduces more problems than it solves. I have proven this over and over the last fifty years. @mahgister +1. Your components are made to reproduce sound as best as they can for there price point. It is more effective to fix the problem not try to deal with the symptoms, typically the room or components that are not synergistic. Perhaps high end sound is not the objective… then, no problem get an equalizer or equipment with tone controls. I don’t think I have owned a component with tone controls or used an equalizer (I have tried them) for forty years. |
Can’t give you help on adding a Schitt, but I have heard good things about them. I went with a Luxman integrated (590AXII) and love it. Has tone and loudness that can be bypassed, I know that some people say tone/loudness isn’t pure, but I’m into listening enjoyment and Luxman fits the bill. |
Can’t give you help on adding a Schitt, but I have heard good things about them. I went with a Luxman integrated (590AXII) and love it. Has tone and loudness that can be bypassed, I know that some people say tone/loudness isn’t pure, but I’m into listening enjoyment and Luxman fits the bill. |
I have 2 Lokis (dos loki?), the original and the improved...original in my video system, numero uno el improvo in the hifi rig generally off until called on (on but bypassed). An amazing gizmo that after many decades dealing with this stuff (pro musician, live sound dude, insufferable old guy creep) has astonished an audio cynic like me. I'm absolutely a Schiit Head...the Freya + (I own the original with NOS GE tubes) just got into Class A Recomended blah blah in Stereophile...among 2 inexpensive preamps, the other being a Topping that isn't tube. Still. |
"All McIntosh integrated amps come with tone controls." Not all of them - the slightly more expensive ones do. For example, the MA 252 hybrid integrated does not come with equalizers but the MA 352 does. It cost $6,500 (I can't remember the cost of the MA 252). The MA 252 puts out 100 watts but has no equalizer. The MA 352 puts out 200 watts but has a 5-button equalizer.
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From the manual MA352 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> How to Operate the MA252 .........................................24-27 Trim Functions: Balance.......................................................................24 Trim Level..................................................................25 Tone Control...............................................................25 Bass Control...............................................................25 Treble Control ............................................................26 Information Display...................................................26 They have tone control.. I’ve never seen a Mcintosh that didn’t. |
I once had the NAD 162 preamp also. These are pretty good preamps. It didn't have a loudness button but had very good tone controls that operated at the frequency extremes so were not heavy-handed at all...subtle yet effective. Anyway, I've found speaker placement and listening position to be way more effective than tone controls. As I've upgraded, I've generally found my new equipment to be more detailed, delicate and yet more neutral in some ways. Less flattering of bad recordings. However I do get excellent bass presence at low volume without tone controls or loudness button. Something I didn't get with my NAD preamp with tone controls.
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I’ve had Maggies for most of the last 40+ years. All that time I HAD to have bass & treble controls to compensate for lower level listening. Last year I had to downsize and after shoehorning my 5½ foot tall speakers into the smaller room, I finally came to the heartbreaking conclusion that it was time to sell the Maggies. I bought a pair of Kef R300’s. Not the most efficient speaker in the world but way more efficient than the Maggies had been. I also got a Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated amp. It was represented as being accurate and musical, plus it had my precious bass, treble and even sub level controls...all of which could be adjust via remote from the listening position. I don’t know if it’s the sensitivity or the Coax drivers, but I haven’t used any of the tone controls since getting the room set up for the last year...I just run the controls flat and it sounds great. Sure, I miss the humongous sound stage of the Maggies, the the Kefs hold their own and the sound at lower volumes is excellent. Zu’s are very sensitive, yet your not having good luck...so maybe it’s not the sensitivity that is helping me out here. I haven’t listened to Zu’s so I have no idea how they are voiced. |
X2 with older ears and hearing changes. barkeyzee1, do you use a digital streamer? Some of them have ways of implementing tone controls and even some sub crossover stuff. The Bluesound Node 2i has these- just have to toggle them on. I currently have a Peachtree Nova 300 and it lacks tone controls. My next rig will have them. Need the price of Luxman to come down... ha How are you liking the Zu DW's??? They are on my short list. |
+1 for the Schiit Loki. I have the original, and using it slightly foreshortened the sense of depth, but otherwise it had little detriment effect to the sound. Like others have suggested, I did switch my preamplifier- from an old Audio Research SP6B to a Cary SLP05 with ultimate upgrade, and the need for the Loki to tame the high end tizzies on some recordings went away, so I no longer need it. But it did work wonders at taming the hot top ends of poorly mastered recordings (like the High-res anniversary edition remaster of the Chicago Transit Authority- ouch!) |
I had the Loki but now use the Akitika PR-102. It has a lot more features, sounds better, IMHO, and it has a remote. Costs a little more, but it sounds good and is much more convenient. Balance in particular is a huge benefit. The remote covers a lot of the features, including volume, balance, “hush”, turning tone controls on and off, input selector, output selector, and mute. |
I have been looking at the JBL SA750 integrated amp, lots of features packed inside. It doesn’t have tone controls, but some have suggested that the DSP the same, sounds complicated to me. That’s been part of my hold-up. I’m not glad you’re having problems, but good to hear of your experience. I’ll guess I’ll stick with that my vintage Sansui, for now. Back in the day I owned a Technics 8055 equalizer with a spectrum analyzer. Very cool, albeit blingy, piece of kit. |
For those on here that use surround sound formats, the Lyngdorfs MP-40..50 and 60’s all have Tone controls. Bass and Treble and they are adjustable. You can set the Bass adjustments at whatever you wish,,, Adjustments centering’s @ at 50, or 350, or 500 HTZ etc (whatever you like)..., likewise with the Treble. Plus Surround speakers volumes, Center volume, LFE volumes.. all these adjustments are on the " home" page. You also have (conveniently on the home page) a "voicing map" which can be used like a old time equalizer. I have one voicing for movies, one for news, one for music etc. All these adjustments are also on the App, so I just leave my lab top hooked up and make quick tweeks during movies, albums etc. Love this Lyngdorf. Only wish is some of these needed to be incorporated on their Remote Control.. |
You've pressed one of my hot buttons with this post. Of course you should have tone controls; that very few higher-end units (preamps, integrated amps, whatever) come with them anymore is, IMO, one of the consequences of audiophile pretentiousness that only benefits the manufacturers. Is there a degradation in SQ when tone controls are engaged? Maybe, a tiny bit. And yes, we're perfectionists. But can you really hear the difference? Try it was a unit that has a bypass button: set the tone controls to flat, then use the bypass to judge the sound with and without routing the circuit path through the tone control pots. Here's the thing. Mahgister always advocates for rigorous (some would say obsessive; check out the photos of his system!) room acoustics treatment. Yes, room acoustics are hugely important. The room is one of the very most important components in your music system, no question. BUT...not all recordings are created equal! Tone controls give you the option of adjusting for a recording that is harsh in the upper midrange, or lacking in bass, or a host of other deficits that would be, shall we say, grossly inconvenient to do by re-arranging one's entire acoustic space for each new piece of music. Someone said in this thread that doing so with tone controls is just playing recording engineer, implying that it's a childishly naive thing to even wish to be able to try. Fine; be that way. As for the "loudness" control, yes, there's the Fletcher-Munson curve, if you want empirical support for the usefulness of this tool. Of course, good tone controls will enable you to do what a loudness button will do. By "good" I mean something like the "semi-parametric" tone controls on the NAD 7600, which allow you to select three different frequency ranges with a toggle switch that can then be dialed in with the bass or treble pot. Another approach is three controls, like on some of the Marantz integrated amps. One more thing. IMO, micro-adjusting the balance is very important for fine-tuning the soundstage. Therefore, I consider a powered balance that can be adjusted from the sweet spot using the remote a necessary feature of any amp; I would not consider an amp that lacked this feature. |
I also recommend the Schiit Loki+ as a useful tone / loudness option, but for the OP, with his Rogue Sphinx v2, there is no way to use one, as the unit lacks a tape monitor or processor loop. Furthermore, the use of high efficiency speakers makes trouble for any push button loudness, which exacerbates the usual overcompensation of all but variable loudness controls. My advice is to ditch the Sphinx and buy the Yamaha AS801 integrated, even if you can afford more….or build an Akitika PR102 which has good B & T and a processor loop. For an amp go-with, their GT102 is plenty for your Zu speakers. Full featured tube preamps are hard to find…mostly vintage collectibles, and do you want to invest in tube gear now? Russian tubes are going to be scarce… |
I understand why people want tone controls...I had very good one said my repairman, a very experienced guy who even say they are top notch in the Sansui AU 7700 not toys at all... I am then lucky .... 😁😊 I was so glad to have them FOR YEARS, and i used also refined filtering controls to this day ... This is the reason i bought the Sansui technology : no negative reviews at all on all counts...I read all for 6 months before buying.... 😁😊 I dont regret my choice... But i dont use tone controls nor the loudness button after years with them...Only one filtering control button.... Why? Because contrary to the belief of some who wrote it above, tone controls compensate the gear/room relation with your "taste" and ears, yes, but DONT FIX the room/system acoustic nor can they replace it at all... They can only alleviate the sonic harm of an acoustically untreated and uncontrolled room in relation to the system, or alleviate some wrongly matched piece of gear, thats all... HOW did i know? Because i stop using them almost a year ago when my room acoustic begin to be optimal , i did not need them ever for ANY album now, nevermind the recording quality... Tone controls can alleviate some harm coming from a lack in synergy between pieces of gear or between the room and gear, but IN NO WAY can replace acoustic... it is an ILLUSION, a deceptive belief... I am not against tone controls, i think most sophisticated amplifier for the general public must have them, and filtering controls , because most people need them anyway... But dont bent the acoustic truth: tone controls are useless if the gear is well match in an acoustically optimized room...But this situation is the exception among all audiophiles...Not the norm at all .... Why this is so ? Because when you tune the room, you tune it for your specific gear in relation to the specific acoustic general content of the room and your specific ears history and specific functional structure in relation to the the brain ( i prefer to use these words than "taste" because i associated taste with the gear fetichism in my posts).. No audiophile with well matched piece of gear and a well controlled room need any tone controls for any albums... Mechanical acoustic tuning , what i call Helmholtz mechanical equalization in a well treated room, is a mechanical tone control itself between room new zones pressures distribution and the speakers characteristics and your own tuning specific ears.... Then yes most people can enjoy tone controls, but when acoustic is completely under control there is no more needs for it... And for those who think that each recording being different it is useful to adapt each one to our "tastes". ..I will say that what is the most astounding fact in a treated and controlled room is the fact that we can NOW perceive all acoustic cues CHOICES of the recording engineer the way they are made because the acoustic settings of our room made them AUDIBLE and they are interesting in itself, nevermind the sound quality of the album compared to another one... ALL ALBUMS ARE SONICALLY INTERESTING NOW , even if the recording remain bad for sure compared to many others; this is the acoustical hallmark impression of a tuned system/room : emerging acoustical recorded cues choices of the recording engineer for our ears and we become more conscious of the way some other acoustical choices were let aside because recording art is a trade-off process....... This is the reason why some "purist" lucky enough to have a good room, treated and under control, "spite" with despise on tone controls, and it is the reason why all of us need for some time like me or forever like most of us tone controls... Like usual dividing people in two groups is childish to say the least....For or against tone controls, objectivist and subjectivist, ETC and other human distinctions which separate us in misunderstood opposition instead of uniting us in understood differences...
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Another option, would be to have a DAC with a nice set of DSP options; continuously variable loudness control using a recent, advanced algorithm, full range of user programable equalization or even user programmable room correction (not an algorithm, simple method of doing it by ear with frequency sweeps) and anything else a full featured DSP engine can provide.. The RME unit above, appears to be the value choice. Many folks report excellent sound quality and the nice set of DSP options are icing on the cake. I have not heard the RME. At a completely different level of sound quality and, of course, price is the Weiss DAC501 which I own. It has all the features mentioned in my first paragraph, many useful remote controlled options including volume, balance and the very important feature of switching absolute polarity on the fly from your listening position (roughly half of all digital music is the wrong polarity which can be heard if you have good ears and a highly resolving system). One can also program up to twelve presets which can be switched remotely on the fly. For example a combination of loudness and equalization settings for quiet, late night listening based on your ears, room and speakers. Also a world class headphone amp with cross feed and factory equalization curves (currently only Audeze curves are included). Finally, direct connection to your network via wired ethernet (saves the purchase of a rendering computer wihich most DACs require externally). For those who don't want to give up their uber expensive uber DACs, one can add all these DSP functions with a DSP501 (no DAC but everything else). I, like many of the folks above, feel that loudness and equalization options done right will enhance any system. For those of us with turntables, the Schiit products at the lower price range or the vacuum tube Manley Massive Passive for much more money (I'm saving for one) are excellent options. The tide is turning. Congratulations to the OP and those that chimed in; you are at the forefront of a major shift in high end audio. |
