Everyone here listens to their music flat, right? (No eq, sub, etc.)

On my Rotel RA971 mkII, usually the tone controls are switched out unless I'm playing 8 track tapes back. Even then all I add is a little bass and treble boost, if needed.
Equalizers: I got shut of mine 15 years ago when I realized all I was doing was creating jagged peaks and troughs in the sound.
When I use my portable Minidisc players I never use the sound presets at all on headphones.

 

No tone controls or sub on 2 channel system. I heard that well chosen cables should be the equivalent of tones controls set to your taste.

 

I have a nine-band EQ run through my tape moniter switch to isolate it. Tone controls were put on the amp for a purpose, but they are limited as to which freq's. they affect, so having a better adjustment system is a benefit. My system has no problem in the mids at all.

Most of my CDs and about a third of my vinyl is listened to 'flat.' But I've found for my room that older (mostly sixties era) stuff sounds best with a slight hump put into the low end, typically +2 / 63hz, +4 / 125hz, +2 250hz. But this is variable. 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' is notoriously flat in the low end and requires a bit more. 'Bubble Puppy' actually requires a reduction to -2 db in some of the low end, as the bass drum is a bit too boomy when played flat. Of course, you can't adjust whats not there, so I don't try to 'fix' older recordings if they have flat spots. Having an EQ adjustment is a great thing.

I rarely need to adjust most mid to upper freq's. Just a tad, now & then.

 

I'm the recovering treble whore from the first post. When I was in Jr. High I used to spike the top end up to ear bleeding levels. I even went so far as to record on chrome cassettes in the normal position (with Dolby) and play them back in normal (without Dolby) to make things even brighter.

My goodness. What was my young mind thinking?

Now I actually hear things as being better when there's less tinkering going on. I like music that sounds full. I guess I've matured a lot in 20 years. I keep my tone controls (when I even have them) set to bypass and let the variances in the music dictate what fidelity I hear. It's really more exciting that way.

 

I never mess with the tone controls.

 

For years I just had an integrated amp with nothing but a volume control, power switch and input selector (Onix OA21). Now I am using a Marantz with a balance control - but still no tone controls.

However.......last year I folded and bought a Behringer T1951 Parametric EQ with a valve output stage. I was trying yo find a solution to a riduculous bass hump I had with a pair of Infinity Kappa 5 "reference standard" (yeah, right!) speakers. They actually sounded OK - I quite like those ribbon-like "Emit" tweeters.

Anyway, the T1951 did a great job of isolating the the hump @ 58 Hz and attenuating with a fairly narrow Q such that the speakers were usable.

Then along comes my 1 year old boy and, while I'm not lookikng, picks off the foam surround on one of the Infinity's!

So, now I have the Quad ESL's (aka "57's") back in action (my wife had to allow them back downstairs under the circumstances ) - the thing is I still have the Behringer in the tape loop and listen mostly through that!

I find it useful to be able to cut the bass on some recordings and I like the valve sound.

I know it's not exactly "hi-fi" but I'll freely admit to enjoying the sound through the Behringer more often than not. Afterall, it's all about enjoyment isn't it?.......

My long term goal is to get the valve sound I like with a decent valve pre-amp or power amp or something but I still like having the accurate control the parametric gives me over the bass. Maybe if I win the Lottery I'll get a Massenberg and a McIntosh valve amp.......

I don't mess about with anything but the bass though - I leave the Behringer bypassed on all but the lowest frequencies and leave the valve "warmth" setting at about "half past 10". For a cheap piece of gear the Behringer has proved a very nice addition to my set-up - even though it goes against all my audiophile instincts to say so!

"If listening to music through an EQ device is wrong then I don't want to be right!"

 

Once the room is equalized (which is set only with major furniture rearrangement), I listen don't adjust the tone controls.

 

I never use any tone controls. Flat all the way. I even annoy my friends when I set their systems (or car CD players) to flat.

 

I stopped using tone controls or EQ when I started building my own amps (both solid state and tube) and modifying my CD players. How can you know exactly what you've built if you using different EQ settings for each amp?

 

i have the treble turned down one notch on my amp, as my B&W speakers tend to be somewhat bright (it's metal dome tweeters, i guess). takes the edge off just a little bit.

 

I thought I was the only one annoying enough to do this.

Flat/neutral all the way! I don't have any tone controls.

 

I use the bypass button on my Arcam. I like to hear the differences between
recordings and it just plain doesn't sound as good when the signal's going
thru the EQ section.

 

My main system hasn't any tone controls, balance or anything. The surround sound has, but I admit that I haven't tried them yet.

I did try experimenting with using Nero to mess around with the equalisation of I Wanna Be Your Man to try to get it to sound like it used to when playing the 45 rpm on the Dansette, but that was a one off.

 

I have a 5 band equalizer on my McIntosh C34 preamp, but I've never used it. My speakers play to 22 hz, so no need of a sub. Flat all the way for me.

 

...with Smiley EQ'ing of course.

 

I have no tone controls in my main system.

 

In the car sometimes I use eq. At home, never.

Jason

 

I use a Sound pressure meter that hooks into my laptop and use a program to assist me in setting the eq to flatten the frequency response of my room and do the same in my car

 

Heh we used to do this, to squeeze every ounce of high frequency response...we had a motto..."gotta hear the hi-hat"

 

Seven-band graphic equaliser. I could never listened to NR'd CD's any other way.


Evan

 

I ususally have the tone controls bypassed on my Adcom preamp, although sometimes I'll punch them in, pigeon-toe the bass and treble controls and undo a partcuarly crappy mastering job.

 

I cured myself of being a treble and bass whore when I was 23 years old, when I disconnected my equalizer from my stereo. Today, I never use tone controls. If I have a bad CD, LP, or whatever, so be it. However, I may tweak a needle drop a bit if I determine that it really needs it. Otherwise, 99% of the time those stay flat too.

 

My system is always set flat. If the EQ of an album bugs me enough, I make my own remaster on CDR and play that.

 

Completely flat..someone told me a long time ago if you need an equalizer you don't have a good enough receiver. I don't agree with this statement now but fiddling with an eq is not something I want to do when I am listening to music...plus you are messing with the art/intention of the album. If an album doesn't sound good...and the music isn't good enough to compensate...I just dump it rather than try to fix it up.

 

Playing through Denon gear I use direct mode to bypass any unecessary eq or circuitry but I do keep the sub on, the sub helps music sound more like what a band sounds like and less like a recording to me. In the car-way unnatural is how I roll, cut the treble and pump the bass.