I’ve also been told many times that true Audiophiles don’t use Tone Controls at all and prefer the Music flat without any EQ.
I like that I have the luxury of playing with the Tone Controls on my Yamaha Amp and for times I don’t want to use them I use the pure direct mode that bypasses the tone controls.
Now here’s my dilemma. I’m looking to buy my second amp and I just can’t think of anything else except Yamaha. Or even when I do find something that has a good spec sheet I cancel it out as soon as I release they don’t have tone controls.
Is this Blasphemy in the Audiophile world? Am I chasing the wrong thing’s looking for that perfect sound setup?
Any kind response will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
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To me, a flat signal is unbearable. Sound like the speakers are inside of a wet paper bag. A good boost in bass and some treble boost always makes speakers sound better, I will die on that hill.
You buy an amp for your use to do as you wish.
Season to taste. I’m with ya.
I make tone adjustments in DSP, so I don’t need tone controls in my amps.
Sometiimes it’s just easier to reach out and turn a knob, and can be more fun/satisfying as well. No argument though that a DSP serves the same purpose and typically offers much more precision.
PEQ is kind of the modern EQ…Bass and treble knobs are kind of crude but to each their own.
The loudness button has real value for quiet listening.
I’ve also been told many times that true Audiophiles don’t use Tone Controls at all and prefer the Music flat without any EQ
Yeah but people also bang on endlessly about DSP and how it’s the audiophile equivalent of god spunking in your ear holes and you can’t audiophile without it. This isn’t really a community strong on consensus despite how often individuals talk in absolutes.
I’m fairly confident that audiophiles don’t use tone controls, except for all the audiophiles that do use tone controls. Now as far TRUE audiophiles are concerned, well, true is the kind of emotional identifier people use when they wanna pretend the subjective statement they are about to make is objective
I regard myself as a music lover, not an audiophile, and will use whatever means I have at my disposal to create sound that is pleasing to my ears, that includes tone controls or an EQ
Cam you say that again? Too much divine spunk in my ears.
The cool thing is…you don’t need to impress the pretentious among us. You don’t even need to use all of the “audiophile” buzzwords or claim a sense of enlightenment in that your system has the purity that produces sound exactly as “the artist intended”.
If you want to EQ, then EQ without concern of conformation.
Some albums have shit production and can sound better with EQ.
Everyone’s a neutral purist til the black metal albums come onTone controls are an absolute requirement for some genres of music. I listen to punk. I can highly recommend the Schiit Loki + as it opens up a lot of tracks that would be unlistenable without it. You can always use the bypass switch. Anyone thats says they can hear the difference when the bypass is enabled is crazy…the same people that buy audiophile fiber optic leads.
It depends. I’m lucky enough to own a high end amplifier, that doesn’t have tone controls, and matching speakers. It sounds amazing in its puristic state.
This makes me laugh because the people saying that might also be the same ones eqing the crap out of their systems using dsp and a computer interface.
If you have a large wallet look at Accuphase or McIntosh. Or consider an external EQ, e.g. one of Schiit’s offerings.
Or Luxman
High end audiophile equipment don’t have tone control because it is suppose to reproduce music ii the way the artist wants you to hear it and it is suppose to sound live or pure. So when you add tone control than that would deviate from that intention. That said if you have some hearing loss or whatever preference than you could buy a preamp with one. That said when you do want an amp with tone control you should get a high quality one as any tone control may cause signal degradation/interference thus also affecting sound quality. Yamaha has tone control because it is more an consumer product than the said audiophile equipment. Most if not all audiophile tone control is in the preamp not Amp/receiver.
Mastering legend Bernie Grundman recently stated in an interview that a component that measures perfectly but has more components in the signal path sounds worse than a component with less in the signal path, even if it doesn’t measure as well.
That’s why the audiophile (unobtainable) holy grail is a straight wire with gain. Meaning just one wire that did all the processing necessary for an audio signal with nothing extra in theory would sound best.
When I was a kid a bought a 10 MXR channel eq I used on 20 foot RCA’s and loved playing around rebalancing tracks from my couch, but analog eq introduces among other things phase shifts. That’s the beauty of using eq in a music server like Jriver, which doesn’t suffer the same issues. That’s where I’d leave eq in a modern audiophile system. If needed for vinyl playback, use a preamp with a tape loop so the eq is only in the signal path when desired.
Regarding phase shifts, some will be unable to hear the degradation because they don’t have phase accurate speakers. It’s one of the reasons I run with Andrew Jones designed concentric speakers. When you hear a phase coherent speaker and play a recording that preserves that phrase info, it’s a real revelation to hear.
I’m of the mindset that it takes controls to mitigate room, speaker and position problems to more effectively recreate the artists’ intended noise.
Just get an EQ and be happy :)
You should do that in the digital domain if you want to do that.
Also, my amp doesn’t have tone control of course, because that’s a power amp.
My McIntosh 2520 has tone controls, I never use em but they are there