2. misc-audio
  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 6 responses by tutetibiimperes

tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
I’m not a fan of the broad ‘bass’ and ‘treble’ knobs because they’re too imprecise, like trying to perform eye surgery with a sawzall.  

On the other hand, I’m a big proponent of digital room and speaker correction.  I use a Dirac-enabled MiniDSP DDRC-22D in my home system and it’s a solid improvement over the uncorrected signal.  It corrects for phase, timing, frequency response, impulse response, undesired room reflections, and more.  

The biggest improvement is in the bass, making everything tighter, clearer, more detailed, and more ‘nimble’, but it also helps with imaging, soundstage, and removes some harsh room reflections.  

I do do plan on adding some physical room treatments in the future to take things to the next level as well. 
tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
@steakster 

The biggest things HEA is ignoring right now are subwoofers, real bass management (I.e. a true active crossover built into the preamp or integrated amp to high pass the mains, low pass the sub, and correct for distance and phase) and room correction.  

I’ve hear Lyngdorf’s Roomperfect is great, but their units fail on other counts by refusing to integrate a sub out and bass management.   Anthem is doing it right with their STR series, and DEQX has room correction and bass management, but from what I’ve read their units aren’t capable of handling automatic distance and phase correction for subwoofers, which seems like a major oversight.  

These are are all basic things that have been in $500 AV Receivers for years, how hard are they to integrate into 2-channel gear?


tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
@erik_squires 

There's the MiniDSP DDRC series that does that.  They have a version with digital inputs/outputs (which I use since I don't have any analog components and don't plan to purchase any) and one with analog inputs/outputs (balanced XLR).  

I like the digital version as it keeps everything in the digital realm - my streaming box ouputs via digital optical to the DDRC-22D, which does all of its magic and outputs via optical digital to my preamp without having to go through an additional AD/DA conversion. 

If you have analog sources the DDRC-22A works the same but it has to convert from analog to digital to do what it does then convert back to analog for output.  
tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
@erik_squires 

You could try RoomEQ Wizard, it’s free software and there’s a Linux version.  It’s not automatic like Dirac, but it will let you do a lot of tweaking.  
tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
@erik_squires 

Hmm, I was under the impression that REW allowed you to apply filters, I thought the guy running noaudiophile used it.  Reading up it looks like he uses it to measure and export correction files that can then be imported into other programs that do the EQ.

Here's the one he says works for Linux:

https://github.com/bmc0/dsp/wiki/System-Wide-DSP-Guide
tutetibiimperes
202 posts
 
Audyssey has a lot of settings, some more intrusive than others.  It seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing, though it does get more praise as an HT solution than a 2-channel solution.  

With the new Audyssey curve editor app you can limit the frequencies that it corrects for though, so you could set it to just EQ below the Schroeder frequency for your room and leave everything above untouched.
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