tone control

[Ian Lyons]

Hi one and and all,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Well after finally putting together a hi fi system ,that is my most expensive and supposedly best ,I am quite rapt with it, That is ,with some of the music I play .The speakers ,which are the only secondhand part of the system,are beautiful with some music, but bright and too much treble with a lot of the music I play. They are  Spendor D9's.They are hooked up to a PrimaLunaEvo 400 streaming Tidal music through  a Auralic Aries G1 and Geiseler  dac and Mike Lenehan  top Speaker cables and interconnects.I also listen to flac quality music on sold state hardrive and it sounds the same as the streamed music, ie very bright .I added another band in the Aries and cut the high frequency  just a tad .I,ve played with speaker placement, but to no avail This brings me to my query originally when checking out speakers we asked to hear When the Levee  Breaks Led Zeppelin, And it sounded crap They said not a good song to test  speakers.On my older and cheaper system after playing with tone When the Levee Breaks sounds great.I know purists would be horrified .But I am interested to  know who on this forum play with tone.I love the PrimaLuna but wonder if I should of bought an amp with tone controls .I am thinking of buying a pre amp with tone control second hand. My lovelylady  is not impressed with me ,any sugestions on what I should get ,with budget in mind, is more than appreciated.

[Steffen]

8 hours ago, Ian Lyons said:

This brings me to my query originally when checking out speakers we asked to hear When the Levee  Breaks Led Zeppelin, And it sounded crap They said not a good song to test  speakers.

 

They are not wrong. This appears to be a particularly poorly recorded/mastered track. It sounds like a ghetto blaster in a parking garage  I think your D9s are right.

 

8 hours ago, Ian Lyons said:

On my older and cheaper system after playing with tone When the Levee Breaks sounds great.

 

I’m not sure about a system that makes this track sound great – what would it do to a well recorded track?

 

9 hours ago, Ian Lyons said:

I know purists would be horrified .But I am interested to  know who on this forum play with tone.

 

I’m not a purist* and I’m not horrified by tone controls**, but I don’t think this track can be fixed with tone controls alone.

 

* lie

** another lie

[GregWormald]

Sometimes the only thing to do with very poorly recorded tracks is play with the reproduction chain. If well recorded tracks sound good then there's probably nothing wrong with the system overall.

If I had too many tracks sounding too bright (I don't know the Spendors personally but they get excellent reviews) then I'd be trying: toe-in, toe-out; looking at the listening room and how it might 'over-reflect' the treble, and maybe even putting an easily removable cloth/felt patch over the tweeter.

[Ian Lyons]

Hi Steffen,

When The Levee Breaks is just as well produced as any rock music of that period .Thats the way it was back then.Even a bit later INXS playing the Loved One also lacks the dynamics of more current music and yes my older system with tone would cut some of that tinny high frequency sound that  does your head in.Interestingly after spending some time on the Auralic  community support forum there are members asking for filters such as loundness switch as they say that they lose  sound dynamics when volume down low.Equally, it was there they talked about pre amps with tone control. I have also noticed there are some well known integrated amplifiers like accuphase that have tone/loudness controls.I have also found that this is a very debatable subject.I am a real newbie to the audiophile world,but if music can make your ears almost bleed because of the sound with certain music ,I am still feeling that a bit of cheating is useful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[aussievintage]

8 minutes ago, GregWormald said:

putting an easily removable cloth/felt patch over the tweeter.

 

 

That reminds me of the expression "put a sock in it" which the legend says refers to a method of making an old acoustic gramophone play more quietly   

[Rosco8]

Seriously nice speakers.  Jeez what a bugger. 

 

I had the same problem, brought a 2nd hand set of speakers, Dynaudios C2 Plats in my case and my existing Parasound system had the same problem, just too bright (harsh) on some tracks, rest were fantastic, it drove me up the wall.  Had no issue on my previous speakers (2 sets).  I dragged them to lots of different positions in the room, mainly made a difference to the bass.  As I liked the speakers I did a lot of reading on forums on what amps work best with the speakers, and ended up changing the preamp and main amp to match them and the existing system with the original speakers migrated to my wife's lounge room and is not used     None of the gear I have has tone controls anymore and  most lack balance as well.  I found preamps (valve for me) made a big difference on taming highs and even rolling valves makes a difference, though you already have a valve amp.   The power amp made some difference as well.   I have since upgraded again and took very special care to balance the new system and migrated the other system into the family room which does get used   I can rotate 5 sets of speakers thru the 2 balanced systems and all are great.  I also had problems of bass dead spots and ended up treating the room with acoustic panels that made a big improvement, a never ending journey !!!  Note I also introduced a Geisler DAC and it didn't seem to have an effect on the highs, since upgraded as well , as digital source I have used a Laptop, Bluesound Node 2i and currently running a Lumin mini as transport and none introduce treble harshness, I haven't tried an Auralic G1. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Rosco8

[Steam]

22 hours ago, Ian Lyons said:

But I am interested to  know who on this forum play with tone.

I use the tone controls when needed - tracks like this are exactly the sort of thing that tone controls can really help.  Some recordings of the Who are also shockers but what a great band.  Tone controls for tracks like this are the difference between turning it up and turning it off.  People complain about phase errors caused by tone controls but for tracks like this....   Plus if YOU like the tone controls use em.  Don’t let anyone else tell you what YOU like.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Steam

[Steam]

another thought is the balance could be on the bright side to begin with if there is an impedance mismatch between the amp and the speakers.  Doesn’t sound like your problem but I have had this experience with a tube amp/speaker pairing (audio research Ref110 and Focal Electra 1007Be don’t play well together).

Edited January 16, 2021 by Steam

[Deepthought]

23 hours ago, Ian Lyons said:

Hi one and and all,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Well after finally putting together a hi fi system ,that is my most expensive and supposedly best ,I am quite rapt with it, That is ,with some of the music I play .The speakers ,which are the only secondhand part of the system,are beautiful with some music, but bright and too much treble with a lot of the music I play. They are  Spendor D9's.They are hooked up to a PrimaLunaEvo 400 streaming Tidal music through  a Auralic Aries G1 and Geiseler  dac and Mike Lenehan  top Speaker cables and interconnects.I also listen to flac quality music on sold state hardrive and it sounds the same as the streamed music, ie very bright .I added another band in the Aries and cut the high frequency  just a tad .I,ve played with speaker placement, but to no avail This brings me to my query originally when checking out speakers we asked to hear When the Levee  Breaks Led Zeppelin, And it sounded crap They said not a good song to test  speakers.On my older and cheaper system after playing with tone When the Levee Breaks sounds great.I know purists would be horrified .But I am interested to  know who on this forum play with tone.I love the PrimaLuna but wonder if I should of bought an amp with tone controls .I am thinking of buying a pre amp with tone control second hand. My lovelylady  is not impressed with me ,any sugestions on what I should get ,with budget in mind, is more than appreciated.

I have what I consider to be a very well balanced system. I can listen to anything from Baroque to EDM and it is very enjoyable. That whole Led Zeppelin album is just about unlistenable on my system though.

There are other (mainly) older recordings that sound quite bad on my system for a variety of reasons and I simply accept that my system is revealing enough to expose those shortcomings and just listen through them.

[Steffen]

41 minutes ago, Steam said:

Oh another thought is the balance could be on the bright side to begin with if there is an impedance mismatch between the amp and the speakers. 

 

You mean, if they are not mismatched enough? Speakers and amps should be as impedance mismatched as possible. The output impedance of the amp should be much lower than the speaker impedance (by the damping factor). When the damping factor is too low, the first thing to suffer is the bass.

[muon*]

49 minutes ago, deepthought said:

I have what I consider to be a very well balanced system. I can listen to anything from Baroque to EDM and it is very enjoyable. That whole Led Zeppelin album is just about unlistenable on my system though.

There are other (mainly) older recordings that sound quite bad on my system for a variety of reasons and I simply accept that my system is revealing enough to expose those shortcomings and just listen through them.

Same, with a system that is well balanced over all, I just accept poor recordings for what they are.

[Andrews_melb]

I thought jimmy page loved the recording of the drums in that song, the specific sound it makes. Its also been sampled a heap of times in songs.

Im not saying it sounds good or bad, just remembering an interview where he was trying to find a specific sound. Maybe in ‘It might get loud’ 

[The Rock Puppy]

Stealing a thought from  @Irek in a different thread, a Schiit Loki might be applicable to your situation. You'd have to look into it further, though. It won't break the bank, either.

[Guest DrSK]

I'm running the same cabling and a DAC from Gieseler

 

Plus Lenehan speakers a Gieseler preamp with either an early Metaxas Soliloquy or Electrocompaniet AW180 monoblocks and don't have this issue. 

 

I doubt it would be the Prima Luna with the rest of the combo other than your speakers.

 

A few suggestions, while a bit rubbish, download a sound level meter app that does 1/3 octave of 1/6 octave frequency bands and then play pink noise through both systems to confirm the differences. The app should be fine at confirming differences other than below 300Hz.

 

This would at least give an idea of what EQ you could apply with Roon or other while feeding the DAC via USB from a laptop etc. It may give an indication of whether your old system is actually missing treble, but apps and phone mics and mic amps are a bit rubbish in these regions. 

 

While perhaps not the same thing, jumping from a crap system to hifi I found something similar, simply because the crap system really only put out mids and no real treble. It was like hearing it all as new again and different music. It was only an issue with the old stuff as my internal reference of what I thought the music should sound like was different from actual. Plus an insane amount of detail. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by DrSK

[muon*]

Can you even use a separate pre amp with the EVO 400?

[stereo coffee]

A very similar thread  asking about equalizers in home audio system was answered by many  including myself here:

 

Tone controls are not needed in good audio systems as they add distortion and remove your ability to hear the music you enjoy as it was intended to be heard.

 

To get yourself on the right path again, begin visualizing components between your source and power amp to now be as simple as is possible, passing audio signals,  as anything added to the source or detracted from the source there,  is not what you require to be amplified. Rather the capability of the source component is what you need to be experiencing,   it really is as simple as that. 

 

 

[Steam]

16 hours ago, stereo coffee said:

Tone controls are not needed in good audio systems as they add distortion and remove your ability to hear the music you enjoy as it was intended to be heard.

I understand what you are saying and if all I listened to was audiophile jazz recordings that would be true.  But some of us listen to great music that was badly recorded.  This means when you play on tha quality system it sounds horrible.  But the music is awesome.  So,

 

option 1). Don’t ever listen to that great track ever again

option 2) mess with tone controls or dsp or other things so you can get something that allows you to enjoy that great music.  

I’m for option 2.  For me it’s about the music not what is the cleanest system is.  I think it was J. Gordon Holt quotesd as stating that  “The quality of the music is inversely proportional to the quality of the recording”.  
 

16 hours ago, stereo coffee said:

To get yourself on the right path again,

The Right path!   I’m very happily on the “wrong path” thanks very much!  

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Steam

[stereo coffee]

Can you give any examples of "that great music"  that was badly recorded ?  maybe I have the same recordings and can let you know

how well they sound, without making them distort with added tone controls.

 

[stereo coffee]

Jazz certainly is very pleasant  but I can assure I also listen intently to some of the heaviest recordings as well,  as they were intended to be heard. 

 

As example have you heard   King Crimson Larks Tongues in Aspic part 2 Live at Asbury Park Casino ?  It reveals so much on a good audio system, for instance you should be hearing the entire stage width  including audience exclamations during the performance. John Wetton's bass is almost subsonic at times.  It should be imminently apparent that it was a very well crafted live multitrack recording, for 1974 although has very minor imperfections  like microphone feedback. The same track although on the 1972 studio recording has John Wetton singing on the same track.

 

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs Live at Sunbury track 3 Momma was recorded effectively in the dark by legendary recording engineer John French

It features similarly a very wide sound stage  with a good audio system you should nearly be able to metaphorically  smell the heat coming off the Strauss amps  the keyboards concurrent with Billys playing akin to the best Mahavishnu orchestra could do are stunning.     The bass lines are incredibly deep,  the drums have amaazing panning and you should distinctly hear the incredible bass drumming  the distortion and feedback of Fender bass and Gibson guitars is perfectly captured adding much higher frequency harmonics as well.

 

Need any more ?

 

 

[Steam]

53 minutes ago, stereo coffee said:

Jazz certainly is very pleasant  but I can assure I also listen intently to some of the heaviest recordings as well,  as they were intended to be heard. 

 

As example have you heard   King Crimson Larks Tongues in Aspic part 2 Live at Asbury Park Casino ?  It reveals so much on a good audio system, for instance you should be hearing the entire stage width  including audience exclamations during the performance. John Wetton's bass is almost subsonic at times.  It should be imminently apparent that it was a very well crafted live multitrack recording, for 1974 although has very minor imperfections  like microphone feedback. The same track although on the 1972 studio recording has John Wetton singing on the same track.

 

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs Live at Sunbury track 3 Momma was recorded effectively in the dark by legendary recording engineer John French

It features similarly a very wide sound stage  with a good audio system you should nearly be able to metaphorically  smell the heat coming off the Strauss amps  the keyboards concurrent with Billys playing akin to the best Mahavishnu orchestra could do are stunning.     The bass lines are incredibly deep,  the drums have amaazing panning and you should distinctly hear the incredible bass drumming  the distortion and feedback of Fender bass and Gibson guitars is perfectly captured adding much higher frequency harmonics as well.

 

Need any more ?

 

 

You still seem to be missing the point.  Not everything is well recorded.  What do you do with the stuff you have that is not well recorded?  Surely you have something that is not good.  

 

Lenny Kravitz sounds like he recorded in a toilet cubicle with a Walkman.  Early Who recordings used ground up razor blades for the treble and forgot the bass.  Do you dismiss music that’s badly recorded?  Or do you grit your teeth and suffer for your pure signal path?  If YOU like this then great.  But please don’t tell me what I should like or that what I like is somehow wrong.   The Who, were an awesome band that unfortunantly didn’t have the kit at the time to capture well what they were doing.  If I can mess with it and make it the way I like it and enjoy it then great.
 

Do you tell the owners of flea watt tube amps and high efficiency speakers that their system is euphonic and they are doing it wrong - another group on the wrong path.

 

 

On 16/01/2021 at 12:10 PM, Steam said:

Plus if YOU like the tone controls use em.  Don’t let anyone else tell you what YOU like.

 

 

 

[stereo coffee]

2 minutes ago, Steam said:

You still seem to be missing the point.  Not everything is well recorded.  What do you do with the stuff you have that is not well recorded?  Surely you have something that is not good.  

 

Lenny Kravitz sounds like he recorded in a toilet cubicle with a Walkman.  Early Who recordings used ground up razor blades for the treble and forgot the bass.  Do you dismiss music that’s badly recorded?  Or do you grit your teeth and suffer for your pure signal path?  If YOU like this then great.  But please don’t tell me what I should like or that what I like is somehow wrong.   The Who, were an awesome band that unfortunantly didn’t have the kit at the time to capture well what they were doing.  If I can mess with it and make it the way I like it and enjoy it then great.
 

Do you tell the owners of flea watt tube amps and high efficiency speakers that their system is euphonic and they are doing it wrong - another group on the wrong path.

 

 

 

 

 

The earliest Who recording I own  is "Who else". Quite the opposite of what you are saying, occurs when using a good audio system. Recordings are not bad as such  rather some just reveal their inherent history limitations.  However what is there  including the limitation for me,   is hugely enjoyable. With a good audio system the limitation is like a separate present multi track and soon falls into place correctly with where it fits with what is heard.  So it is not bad as such  but important in most cases  to also hear preserving what occurred.  i never grit my teeth rather i enjoy what is there.

 

Here is one which you may have heard  Creams wheels of Fire from 1968  it preserves the way the tape was stored, as you can hear magnetic print through on the track Spoonful. That sort of detail is outside the performance but is important as it reveals a limitation of analog tape recording. Analog recording generally was extremely good, aided by preserving dynamics with companding.   

 

 Robert Johnson's recordings  no one in the history of music I would say no one had less money to record. Yet the recordings from

November of 1936 contain the friction noise of the acetate being cut, which is not a problem rather  Robert's voice and guitar playing and presence in the room is what is appreciated and easily heard.  The acetate noise sounds as a separate track so is just interesting. 

 

Such is the appreciation of external noise, many artists add the same noise to some recordings Suzanne Vega as example.   

The microphone used to capture his voice arguably the main focus of the recording has simply awesome dynamic capability. 

 

When recordings get into the hands of record companies rather than the artists is where lesser versions proliferate and some of these are for me are just annoying.    But history shows the better versions can be sourced. A great example is Whole lot of Love by Led Zeppelin the version available for over at least 48 years had been equalized for cassette ( those horrible tone controls ) but that was not the recordings fault  rather a arbitrary decision of the record company. The original recording has been subsequently been restored by the artist in this case Jimmy Page and contains no such limiting eq.      

   

[sir sanders zingmore]

[Martykt]

4 hours ago, Steam said:

Do you tell the owners of flea watt tube amps and high efficiency speakers that their system is euphonic and they are doing it wrong - another group on the wrong path.

So what exactly is the correct path that everyone should be following?

[Guest DrSK]

22 hours ago, stereo coffee said:

 

Tone controls are not needed in good audio systems as they add distortion and remove your ability to hear the music you enjoy as it was intended to be heard.

 

To get yourself on the right path again, begin visualizing components between your source and power amp to now be as simple as is possible, passing audio signals,  as anything added to the source or detracted from the source there,  is not what you require to be amplified. Rather the capability of the source component is what you need to be experiencing,   it really is as simple as that. 

 

 

 

Not totally sure that I agree with all this. Many of our systems are better than what the music was mixed for and from what I gather talking to sound engineers,  there is a balance between what sounds good on a full reference system vs what the target market has at home.

 

Some stuff I have definitely sounds better on my lesser speakers and better balanced. 

 

And a lot of older stuff sounds 'terrible' , in part because my internal reference and nostalgic memories were derived off far lesser systems. 

 

Music isn't just about reproducing what was in the mixing room, it is about how you feel about it and transporting yourself back to some other place and time. 

Edited January 18, 2021 by DrSK

[aussievintage]

45 minutes ago, DrSK said:

Not totally sure that I agree with all this.

 

You are not alone.   The purists make you feel bad about just wanting to hear the music at it's best in your particular situation.  If a tone control helps, then use it.  There is no single path that needs to be followed.