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The use of equipment as "tone controls"

Several times in my Audiogon reading and posting over the last couple of years, I've noticed this or that contributor commenting along the lines of: "You shouldn't use your amp/cables/cartridge/whatever as a tone control."

I assume what this is supposed to mean is that there is some absolutely correct sound out there, and we ought not have audio equipment of any kind that deviates from that absolutely correct sound.

I might be able to buy into this if we were listening to live instruments (although their sound is, of course, affected by the space in which they are played, the position of the listener, etc., so is not itself "absolute"). But we're not listening to live music. We're listening to recordings. There are microphones, cables, recording equipment, mastering equipment, storage medium, etc, all of which come between us and the original sound--not to mention the taste and perception of the engineers, producers, etc. In that sense, what we hear coming out of our speakers is all illusion, anyway. And the illusion comes in quite a few "flavors." On one system I had, Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard sounded like he was in my living room. But Leonard Bernstein conducting the NY Phil in the early 60's was so shrill it made me run screaming from the room. In my current system, Bill Evans doesn't sound as "right there" as he used to (now I'm a few of rows back, yet still quite happy), but Leonard Bernstein doesn't make my ears bleed, either.

How did I work that? I experimented with different equipment. I used the equipment as "tone controls" (I guess). It's all respectible equipment: ARC, VTL, BAT, Cardas, etc. Maybe it reduced the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Bill Evans, but it increased the "accuracy" of the reproduction of Leonard Bernstein. Maybe. But who knows for sure?

We all tailor the sound of our systems to suit our preferences. What's wrong with that? And, most equipment has it's own sound character. That seems like a good thing, to me. It allows us to tailor our sound.

Now what we REALLY need is a good set of tone controls on our fancy pre-amps, so we can really tailor our sound!

Food for comment?
eweedhome
ramy
141 posts
 
you are absolutely right,recording are by no means perfect
as you pointed out the taste of the recording engineer and his equipment has a dominant effect on the recorded sound.I have found the ideal way to make the recording sound as close to live and non irritating is by using the Cello Audio Palette in my systems(I have two one for each system)I find that equalizer to be superb and a much better value than all the variety of cables or other accessories. Even live instruments have their own sound,for example I find the sound of certain brand of pianos to be harsh,with the Cello equalizer I can modify their sound to adjusted to my taste.I could not live without that component in my audio system.
rx8man's avatar
rx8man
1,482 posts
 
Agree, our equipment has been wrestling the recorded effect for many years.

Without some kind of equalization or tone control(s) you have to split the balance of sound down the middle for your entire collection.
cdc
1,807 posts
 
Yes, correcting the fault in one component with another faulty component is a bad idea IMHO.
Actually buying a tone control is different altogether. I have been told a tone control offers the least detriment to sound quality whereas equalizers will distort the sound more.
Just changing the output at 100 hz and 10,000 hz with a tone control is often enough to compensate for different recordings. Provided your system/room is not inherently faulted to begin with.
eweedhome OP
227 posts
 
Okay, so what pre-amps of note out there have tone controls? Some McIntosh do. I snagged a 2nd hand c2200 very recently (don't even have it yet), but have been somewhat pained to note that it seems to have gotten mixed reviews among the Audiogon crowd. And a friendly source told me about an updated "remake" of the Citation One, from VAS. Has anybody heard that? The Absolute Sound seemed to like it (although I read just a bit of hesitation into that review...maybe it was just me). As far as I can tell, that's about it from "high end" land--at least in terms of tube gear of which I am aware.

Is there such thing as an "outboard" tone control, that you would plug in through the tape loop (I guess)?
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
since all components are imperfect, they alter the signal to the speakers, and of course, the speaker itself alters the signal as well.

what this means is that components have a sonic signature.

the issue of "tone control" arises when the consumer deliberately selects components each of which affect the sound in audible ways.

a stereo system and recording is a tone altering system.
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