Adding Tone Controls?


My system sounds wonderful when playing well recorded jazz, classical, or "audiophile approved" material. Unfortunately, mass market pop frequently sounds horrible, with screechy splashy highs. It's obviously recorded with a built in bias to be played on car radios or lo-fi mp3s.
What can I add to my system to tone-down the highs on this sort of material? Sure, there's plenty of well recorded material to listen to, but there are plenty of pop rock bands I'd really like to explore if the recordings could be made a bit more listenable.
bama214
I think you guys are misjudging what he means when he says the material sounds like crap. The OP listens to music that's recorded hot with a ton of processing. Yes the DSPeaker will help but it won't fix the problem.IC's and speaker cable won't do jack for his problem, the recordings are simply bad. Which indictates to me that he listens to music he likes, not audiophile crap that's recorded to perfection (boring)with the life stripped out of the music.

How do I know? Because I had the same problem with what I listen to. If he has M/L's that will only make the problem worse. Too many speaker designers/builders seem to have lost their hearing between 2500-5000htz. Most speakers are just plain too hot/emphsized in that range. That's a lot of the reason women can't stand to listen to most speakers. Their just too hot in that area.

Personally it drives me nuts, but there are speakers out their that will help in his pursuit of happy listening, though some are considered out of the normal audiophile approved speakers. Speakers that throw most all of the sound in your face are not helpful in this situation. Sometimes going against conventional thinking of what speaker to use can make it much more tolerable to the OP.

Of course I don't think he's willing to change speakers but those crappy sounding recordings he'll take into consideration a little more in the future when he looks/listens to speakers. Just for kicks take a look at the fr of the Apogee Stages in Stereophile on-line. The way it drops in the rising fr is how I can get around the problem. Some people are also very sensitive to the fr between 2500-5k hertz range. There are other speakers that will help his problem besides the Stages though. So the DSpeaker unit should help out I would think.
Just a thought.
If not you would still have to use the DSPeaker in an analog processor/tape loop, since its only digital input is optical.

I'm using a MSB Digital Director to convert from Coax to Optical into my Dual Core. I have the same issue with Coax only from my 47 Labs Flatfish transport. MSB doesn't make them any more so you have to find a used one, about $100.00. The Digital Director is 12v and can be powered by a 12v battery power supply if desired. Also the Behringer SRC 2496 can be used as well to convert from coax to optical. See how it is used here, http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1329307228&read&keyw&zzdspeaker. Scroll down to the response by Ginov.

Hope this helps.
Shakeydeal, you might want to read the recent review of the DSPeasker Dual Core in TAS. He addresses your blind bias towards equalization in very thoughtful way. He points out that the professionals that engineered the recordings you buy use EQ extensively. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for audiophiles to adjust the sound of bad (too bright), or older (lean bass) recordings to improve their sound.
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Man, is this an entertaining thread or what!

Lot's of frustrated closed-minded individual stuck in the snobbish audio-prison!

Who cares of one's solution for attaining enjoyment from his sound system. Cables, tone controls, equalizers, secret magical stones placed on speakers during a full moon, who cares ?

If it gets you there, do it! And pay no attention to those who put down others if they tinker with "purity". Sometimes a pure, unaltered signal can make your ears bleed in the wrong room, the wrong walls, the wrong surroundings furniture, hell, the wrong ears!

So go ahead, fight back with whatever technology or means at your disposal, as long as you enjoy the end results!

That's what this hobby should be about, enjoyment. So, remove those cobwebs and go for it?