I use 2 unobtrusive beautiful sounding REL subs (inexpensive bought used) and their volume pots are accessible due to chicken head knobs, and until recently they were my only "tone controls"....and that was fine, and mostly still is. I have a Schiit Loki that is also unobtrusive and seems to have zero impact when bypassed (click it on and off and you can see what that's all about...no sign of it). Other than the fact that, in my case anyway, it makes for longer cables runs to the amp (and is single ended only). I checked very carefully to see if the longer cable runs (a couple of meters instead of previously one) had any negative effect on my preamp-to-amp signal and was happy to notice it doesn't. In any case, those who are anti "DSP electronic nanny" (they remove some of the soul from music, and I should know as I have no soul at all) should order a Loki immediately. Although it stays bypassed most of the time, it's an extremely useful little el-cheapo gem. Look for a balanced version eventually, although that should be somewhat more costly...still...
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
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