Do you use tone controls?

Wanting to be a good audiophile, I have tried to keep my tone controls at 12 o'clock, but I find myself making adjustments to bass and treble every day. Any one else want to confess their love of tone controls?

 

I do. Mainly treble. But my (soon to be mine) Bryston BP-6 preamp doesn't have any tone controls.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

I might every now and then, but my current amp doesn't have tone controls.

 

I always leave them at 12 o'clock.

 

all the time on my mehPod

 

No. Don't have 'em. Don't want 'em. Don't need 'em. Capice? Thought so.

If anything, sometimes I wish I had a treble nob so I could tame some of the ear-bleeder CD's I have. Original Musiquarium remaster, anybody? Ugh . . .

 

Same here.

 

Don't have them. Haven't had them on an amp since 1980, and even then, I never used them.

I used to drive the rest of the family bonkers in the '60s because I'd always reset the bass and treble controls on the family stereo to their null position.

 

I play lots of records from the beginning of recorded sound forward. Only a minority even purport to conform to RIAA equalization. Under the circumstances, tone controls are a fact of life for casual listening. For more serious playback (say, for dubbing 78s to a computer), I use a 1/3 octave EQ. Mind you, ever since I made arrangements to play 78s "flat," I've needed much less resort to the EQ--but, on the downside, over the years I'd developed a pretty good idea of how to set the EQ up to compensate for RIAA, and I need to climb the learning curve again for a flat signal.

 

A good tone control is something to die for. Unfortunately MOST tone controls suck. The standard baxandall has only one occasion sounded good to me. I go for passive devices such as the filter network in the Pultec EQP1a. I hard wire networks sometimes to get a response I want. Did you guys know that an Audio Note amp had some EQing applied to it's front end to correct some HF roll off.

 

Nope. I want to hear the recording as transparently as possible. I have a "direct" mode on my amp and I keep it engaged.

 

What are tone controls?

Seriously, tone controls are not necessary on well designed gear.

 

Haven't touched mine. They stay vertical all the time. You really can't avoid these controls on most vintage amps, right?

 

I said "no," which is true 99.9% of the time. But I still like having tone controls on my preamp for that very rare CD that sounds so harsh that a little treble roll off is in order. This is basically only something I do for live jazz recordings, many recorded in the pre-tape era, most never intended to be enshrined forever, but many of which have incredible musical and historical value but just sound terrible. On my vintage Marantz 7 pre, when the tone controls are at neutral they are literally taken out of the circuit, so no harm/foul having them there for the rare instance when they're needed in my opinion.

 

I used to with my last set of speakers and my NAD C352. The speakers were very bright and quite often I'd lower the treble. I upgraded the speakers and integrated amp (Unison Unico w/ no tone controls) and have no need for tone controls.

 

I used to do abit of the "Smiley" on my old "Does Everything Poorly" receiver.
When I bought my Arcam, I was told that it would sound better with the direct button engaged and I've listened that way ever since. It's mid-fi certainly, but I can hear enough to know that you can't increase the Treble or Bass setting's without upsetting the Apple Cart.

 

...keep them all flat.

 

They're out of circuit a good 95% of the time here but I do sometimes use a little treble cut on ear bleeding CDs or slight boost when listening to the 8 track.
Boom and Tizz don't do much for me personally.

 

No-don't have any.

 

Same here.

 

I don't have any tone controls on my amp.

 

Yes I do, but not too often. With modern CDs I often have to subtract some high end.

 

Have em' but don't use em'! They never sound natural to me

 

I don't have tone controls on my amp, but for the few CDs which need tone correction, I play them on my PC through my DAC and use the equalizer of the software player.

 

No, don't have any on my equipment.