We give up perspective to avoid tone controls

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.

Room EQ Wizard is just measurement software. :) 

I have OmniMic, which does a fabulous job of creating FIR filters for miniDSP. I just don't want to futz like that.

Best,

Erik 

@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

REW has a function that develops a recommended Eq program based on your measurements or you can do it yourself. You then download it directly into a MiniDSP. It works amazingly well - measuring afterwards it chopped off the bass peaks to give a much smoother response. The trouble is I didn’t like a ruler flat room curve.

Floyd Toole is on record as an advocate of tone controls to help manage speaker/ room interface. I have no issue with tone controls and use them on a second system.

I’ve gone with the advice you gave me last year to work on room acoustics first then add Eq. I’m very satisfied with the room diffusor that I put at the FRP - not so much with the miniDSP Eq part.

@stereo5 

If the tone controls are designed properly, you will miss nothing.

Every cap, resistor, pot, switch, wire, PCB, layout, ground scheme, connector, dielectric etc. has a 'sound.' Some deteriorate over time. Add a bunch of them together to create a filter and you not only get the filter but you also get the combination of all the 'sounds'. 

Only nothing sounds the same as nothing.

@almarg 
Don't forget Spica. I heartily agree that time trumps frequency six ways to Sunday. Tone controls alter the frequency and eff up the time. If the time is messed up as in most speakers, tone controls may be less objectionable.

@whart 

I guess one assumption that continues to hold is that the system should be properly set up, "voiced" and left alone

As a former recording engineer, I have this perspective, but I was there long before I started recording. If some program requires EQ, it's a bad job and I can't be bothered to fix it. There's just too much well recorded great music to waste time on the bad stuff. That being said, I do sometimes 'fix' digital files but I gotta really LOVE the music.

I am increasingly ambivalent about the purist approach, knowing how much gimmickry already goes into to most commercial recordings and how difficult it is to reproduce the illusion

I had that attitude about 30 years ago when I quit recording. In the past 3 years, I've focused back on purist improvements. The close I get to the music without the masking, the better I enjoy it.