2. amps-preamps
  3. 1015719675

Tone controls to get bass from small speakers?

Have you ever thought you'd like to have tone controls at your disposal to do a good job of extending the bass of small speakers? (aw, c'mon, admit it).

Anyway, it seems that whenever a product (usually a budget product) actually does have tone controls, it is set to boost bass around the 100 hz level, and this seems fairly useless. In the past, however, I had an astounding little system consisting of Spica TC-50's, a Marantz CD63, and an AMC 3030 integrated.

The Spicas weren't exactly Jurassic Park dinosaur stompers, but the really cool thing about the AMC was that it boosted bass around 50 hz, not 100 hz. This gave the apparent effect of giving the Spicas real, extended bass.

Do you know of any combination of small speakers and amplification-with-tone-controls that can pull a thirty foot organ pipe out of a hat?

Thanks guys.
stevegolf1
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
This is nothing new. If you bought a graphic equalizer as was popular in the 1980s you could just adjust the low bass and leave the rest neutral. The problem is tone controls are in the way of the signal path and degrade the sound. I actually have an audiophile quality power amp I use occassionally that has a subsonic bass tone control (Creek A52SE). I had a techie disconnected and bypass it. The bass was better after it was removed, than it ever was before it was removed, on any of the settings.
jeffloistarca
1,004 posts
 
My Linn Classik has tone controls, and they do help some. I tilted the bass up a notch or two with my ProAc Tablette 2000's and there was audible benefit in doing so. Bear in mind, this system is used in a 8 x 10 room with the music played at low levels so fiddling with the tone controls makes sense. Having a system in your office at work means compromises but certainly worthwhile. I'm not sure I'd use tone controls if the system was played at "normal" levels in a larger room. Trust your ears!
bomarc
501 posts
 
If I recall correctly, in the old days Radio Shack sold an Optimus(?) line of amp-speaker systems that were designed in just this way, with the amp compensating for the speakers' weaknesses. The current NAD all-in-one system also has a bass boost tailored, I presume, to the PSB Alpha Minis that it is often marketed with. It's heresy at the high end, of course, but in the low- to mid-fi ranges, it may well be the most logical way to go.

Now that I think about it, if I were a manufacturer, I might be tempted to hide an equalizer inside my powered speakers, to achieve just the effect you're describing. I could get better bass response from smaller speakers, and the audiophiles would never know!
More to discover