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

I have a vintage Marantz receiver with bass and treble knobs, but I have fiddled with them maybe twice ever. 99% of the time I just leave them flat.

 

No tone control here either. Don't use my sub because I never hear/feel anything coming through it unless it's x.1.

In the car, sometimes I have to turn the bass down because it's distorting, but only then. That's generally only stuff that's mastered loudly.

 

I haven't owned a pre amp with tone controls in over thirty years.

 

I'm not really getting why this is such a point of pride for everyone...? What's wrong with using these things?

 

Many here subscribe to the gospel of "flat" mastering, so why would they want to use the bass or treble knob? I have a co-worker who constantly pushes the five-band graphic eq on the office stereo into the "smiley-face" curve, with the 100 hz and 10 k bands pushed all the way to the top. He also turns on the "Super Bass." I come in every day and pull all the eq to zero and turn the Super Bass off. It's a never-ending battle.

 

They degrade the sound quality and they don't really work. You cannot compensate for questionable EQ in mastering with the use of a couple of knobs to tweak the bass and treble.

 

One doesn't really have anything to do with the other.

Flat mastering is the most accurate way of reproducing what's on the master tape, which may or may not be the best way to hear the music.

Assuming you have a good sound system, keeping the tone controls flat is the best way to hear the mastering engineer's work.

I would assume that people who prefer flat-transferred remasters are actually more inclined to do their own EQ tweaking than people who like to play well-EQ'd remasters on a flat sound system.

 

Back in my vinyl days, I had no need for an EQ. When I started buying CD's, I bought one within days of my first CD purchase. The hole in the mid-range of CD's necessitated that more than anything else. Can I have my records back?

 

I have no tone controls

 

I have a question about my Yamaha AX-396 amplifier. It has a switch called "Direct CD/DVD" switch which I always use. I assume this means I am bypassing something and get a better sound?

 

I admit, I tweak the tone controls. Always have, always will. I'd even like to get an EQ with a remote so I can adjust the tones while still sitting in the sweet spot.

 

ditto. i had tone controls on my old accuphase e-206, but i never used them either and the tone control section was always switched off completely.

 

A good way to compare what effect any EQ adjustments have since you can play the straight signal back as the reference.

IMO its the more 'processed' sounding, cheaply recorded, and older (i.e. pre-70's) rock & pop that can benefit from a little EQ adjustment. Like some '60's psych and pop rock. I'm not that concerned about futzing up the signal on sonic sludge like The Electric Banana, 13th Floor Elevators, etc. Isn't inducing a little near imperceptible distortion into a distortion drenched recording a rather circular issue? A lot of older recordings have little low end and too much on top. And I can take reduce that digital 'edge' from some CDs with a few careful EQ tweaks.

Most any period jazz, and later (post-1970 era) rock/pop recordings rarely need futzing. My records well illustrate that most recording of rock/pop took a step up about then.

 

At home I use an old 70's H/K receiver - both the bass and treble are turned slighly to the right of center most of the time. Same with my car.

 

Flat. All the time. If I ever dabble in knob turning (other than volume) I always find that, yes you can decrease treble or increase bass, but in turn that will always affect another part of the sound spectrum and then everything starts sounding 'out of wack'.

If a certain recording (usually new cds) sounds bad then I either get a better copy (vinyl, older version of the cd) or ditch it and blame the bonce what mastered it.

Just today I was trying to listen to the Collectors Choice Everlys that recently came out. I know that Andrew Sandoval is a respected forum member but sadly I just find those CDs too glassy in the top-end. I could of mucked around with the treble control but in the end I went downstairs and pulled out some gold label and grey label WB LPs and all was well again.

Hope this doesn't come across like a bitch about the Everlys cds. 'Roots' sounds pretty nice..maybe it was just the stereo master of 'Two Yanks In England' that had that sound to it?

 

By-passed tone controls on my normal pre.

I'm currently playing with a borrowed McIntosh C32 and tried the controls at first for fun, then bypassed.

 

Exactly. The room is the most important component of your system. I seen very expensive equipment that sounded quite bad because the room was set up correctly. Just because you leave the tone controls "flat" on your system doesn't mean that when the music interacts with the room it is still flat.

But it is a good idea not to eq or treat your room without knowing what you are doing.

 

Ditto. Everything starts flat, and if it seems to need a little something, I give it. What sounded ideal to the producer/mastering guy/whomever might not to me. Why be a slave to someone else's senses?

 

On occasion I have experimented with 'remastering' a recording using a digital editor with eq, just to see what I could do. The recently discovered Disque Americ CDs of Help! and Rubber Soul are a couple of prime examples, and I had the benefit of that thread where Steve suggested eq tweaks for those. I've done the same for a few, um, 'unofficial' recordings by that same group, where some eq-ing restored a bit of life to a carelessly transferred tape (some, of course, are hopeless). I'm currently mucking around with the first two Big Star LPs. There are a few flat-transferred CDs I'll probably take a crack at in the future.

I've never cared for outboard eq, though. The LPs I listen to don't need it, and if I do needle drops I want them to sound like the source. As I said in the above paragraph, if I think the CD needs it and I really care enough about the recording to put out the energy, I'll spend a lot of time tweaking on the computer (I don't have $9k to spend on a tube processor ). Most of the time I'm satisfied with the sound of the many CDs I own, even if they're not all spectacular or necessarily up to audiophile standards. I appreciate good-sounding music, when I sit down in the living room to listen and relax, I want to listen and relax, and not have to adjust anything but the volume knob.

Jason

 

I use expensive EQ, or tubes in my main system. When listening through headphones on my portable CD player, I seldom use anything. I admit to adding some judicious EQ through Nero when transfering old radio shows in order to boost intelligibility if necessary, but even then, I apply for "less is more" methodology.

Nothing more pathetic than sharing a listening session with a fellow purist and neither will use a tone control to correct what we both agree is wrong. Been there, done that. Sometimes they just need to be applied.

But, in a perfect world, I prefer things flat and I'll adjust volume (my 1st choice tone control)before I use tone controls.

 

This is exactly what I do with my EQ. Most of the time my main system uses no tone controls at all, but I have the option of some help if I need it. That, plus rolling a few tubes in and out and using the second pre out for a subwoofer (complete with a separate active crossover and amp) has been all the tone controls I need for a good while, now. Older recordings, along with this new loud trend, can sometimes benefit greatly with a little EQ help.



P.S.
I have a 'lower upper mid-fi' receiver in my bedroom and I rarely turn any controls except volume.

 

Flat is where it's at.

I had one of those Radio Shack 10 band Equalizers when I was 15 (back in the early 80s). I would jack up the lows and highs to get that boom-hiss sound. Listening to it that way now is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

 

On my good stereo, no EQ, but the sub is on for anything below 40hz.

On my computer, I tweak the EQ on everything.

In my car, I listen with a little treble sheared off since my car speakers sound a little too bright.