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  3. 135979-20253

We give up perspective to avoid tone controls

Hi Everyone,

While most of my thread starters are meant to be fun, I realize this one is downright provocative, so I'm going to try extra hard to be civil. 

One thing that is implicit in the culture of "high end audio" is the disdain for any sort of electronic equalization. The culture disdains the use of anything other than a volume control. Instead we attempt to change everything to avoid this. Speakers, speaker cables, amplifiers, and power cords. We'll shovel tens of thousands of dollars of gear in and out of our listening room to avoid them. 

Some audiophiles even disdain any room acoustic treatments. I heard one brag, after saying he would never buy room treatments: "I will buy a house or not based on how good the living room is going to sound." 

What's weird to me, is how much equalization is done in the mastering studio, how different pro speakers may sound from what you have in your listening room, and how much EQ happens within the speakers themselves. The RIAA circuits in all phono preamps IS a complicated three state EQ, we're OK with that, but not tone controls? 

What attracts us to this mind set? Why must we hold ourselves to this kind of standard? 

Best,


E
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by oldschool1948

oldschool1948's avatar
oldschool1948
507 posts
 
I'm new to this forum and to digital music. I'm not a purist, I just like listening to what sounds like good music (to me).  I've been buying and selling analog 2-channel equipment since 1968.  My first "quality" equalizer, which I still use is a Soundcraftsman SP4001 equalizer/pre-amp paired with a Pioneer SPEC-4 and a pair of original Bose 901s. I know many folks on this forum scoff at equipment like this, but I've had it since the mid 80's and it sounds good to me. 

Fast forward to the early 2000's, I got an incredible deal on a McIntosh 31V ( has an equalizer), MC2600, MCD7008 CDP, and Tuner paired with a pair of DCM TimeWindow 3 speakers.  I love being able to tweak music, especially some vinyl albums using the Mac equalizer.  

I decided to jump into digital music and recently purchased a NAD M12 w/ BluOS module and M22 v2, paired with a pair of Tannoy 8 dcti speakers for my new listening room.  The sound is quite different than my analog gear.  Some differences are good and some are not so good.  When streaming Tidal, sometimes the highs are too bright and transitions too loud.  I don't get quite that same dramatic effect out of the Pioneer or Mac amps.  The NAD gear is less than a month old - I'm hoping the sounds smooths out a bit more in time.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase.  Of course, the music is much more detailed with a wider sound stage.  And most Tidal jazz masters sound awesome.  Old school vocal masters sound good, but not as good as the jazz.   

The M12 has treble and bass tone controls, which I don't use - yet, but I sure miss my Mac equalizer - especially, when listing to old school vinyl albums and streaming them from Tidal or my NAS.
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