4KROW (Greg Peyton)
(QUOTE)
I would add that while tone controls are sometimes an invasion into perfection, the real world may suggest otherwise. That is to say, as mentioned above, there are those recordings that need help, either in an addition or subtraction of frequency balance. Also, I don't like to admit it, but my ears hear a little different from one another these days. Lastly, my room has few issues that could be diminished a bit with a little help. Other times, it is just fine to bypass the tone control altogether.
(QUOTE) 2WO (John Scanlon)
I have an Audio Research SP3a. I don't use in my current setup but it has a "contour" control, an adjustable loudness, which was
nice for low level listening. Never found the tone controls very useful. If I needed them all was pretty much lost to begin with.
I like Paul's idea of using a BSC as a loudness control...John
(QUOTE) Paul Joppa
My reading of the history is that tone controls appeared when tubes got cheap enough that the extra gain was affordable, and were (in the thirties and forties for example) useful because speakers were very far from flat. Even the best home-audio speakers had serious deficits in both bass and treble. Remember, back then "transient smearing" referred to the treble coming out of a bass horn 5-10 milliseconds before the bass, or the bass ringing for a similar time after the signal stopped. The term was "bass overhang" IIRC.
These days it is a reasonable expectation to look for a speaker with a fairly flat response. But between bad recordings and room acoustics (not to mention esoteric speaker designs with oddball response curves) a bit of equalization can come in mighty handy.
There was an important paper that came out, maybe early seventies(?) that suggested "loudness" controls did not accurately reflect human hearing - this was because the ancient Fletcher-Munson curves were updated around then. But that was also when tone controls were disappearing, and I think this improvement never actually made it into commercial production - they just kept on using the old designs. That would be another interesting thing to revive.
(QUOTE) fastfred (Fred Petersen)
I like the reference to the paper about loudness controls and the improvement which never got to market (thanks Paul)
I'm hoping that Doc B and the guys will weigh in soon. One last observation from me. To be honest as long as I can improve the sound of those old thin sounding moldie oldies that I have so many of it doesn't matter to me whether the design decided upon is passive or active. I know Doc B & the guys wouldn't bring a below par product to market.
Another reason for a tone control, back in the day if a record sounded bad you just tweeked the tone controls. It's still a valid reason for having them today. I was culling my cd collection last week, by just quickly listening to each cut what amazed me was how poorly recorded some of those cd's were. I pulled out some box sets & recordings I never listen to any more and made myself about $250 for 6 box sets & 30 CD's 60's & 70's rock mostly. The plan was to use the money to download hi res files of those recordings. Then I remembered the change from vinyl to cd, the the release of the remastered cd's, set aside the audiophile versions, example I have Exile on Mainstreet the latest box set, & found a 2 disc version of Exile, as well as a version with both albums on 1 disc. How many times do I have to buy a recording in a new format to keep up with the Jones's. Thats actually when I had the "aha" moment. I'm not going to repurchase a 1200 cd record collection. I'm going to find a tone control. I'm sick of lining record company pockets.
