Why No Treble and Bass Controls on High-End Audio Pre-amplifiers?

Glad you mention this, Ron. I completely agree with you.

What is more, the preference of the sound engineer may be influenced by the frequency response of his studio monitors in his particular control room. I have seen graphs showing markedly different frequency curves of the in room response of the same monitor in different studios around the world.

I find in particular bass amount in recordings vary wildly for no apparent logical reason other than possibly speaker response and (drunken?) preference of the sound engineer. Why should I make myself a slave to that? I happily adjust my subwoofers in my 2-way monitor/sub system between recordings, and make my listening experience much.more logical, believable and pleasant. I have no patience for absolutist dogmas when it comes to that.

Hi Ron,

Do you not want to hear what the recording engineer heard or puts down to tape? Or do you want to hear what you think the music sounded like in the studio if you could imagine the whole ensemble playing together rather than parts only?

Isn’t the goal to create a sound you like, one that moves you and makes you feel you know the singer or group intimately, and not strive for an absolute sound?

What if the sound of the studio, a flat transfer, is not what you prefer but a slightly altered version that connects you more.

Often when listening I take the role of producer and wish for a little bit more of that or a little less of that. It’s a curse I know but it’s all part of the fun and doesn’t really spoil my appreciation for musicians, engineers and producers. Just don’t let me near a graphic equaliser

Blue58

I understand the sentiment but if you want the quality of control... You're going to be adding an expensive mixing board (or equivalent). And even then you're dealing with the watered down signal, so the results may be underwhelming in quality as you play with it.

Here is the other question, how often would you really want to use them?

Your bass towers actually do have bass control, btw... and some speakers have switches for the tweeters or autoformers like the VSA.

There are no neutral musicians - the music they make results from their subjective decisions on how to play their part, within the confines of the score, their section leader and the conductor. Likewise there is no neutral conductor - thank goodness. There is no neutral hall or performance space. No neutral tonemeister. Etc. Etc.

Neutrality is a myth, though there are boundaries of acceptance - such as tuning your instrument when the oboe plays an 'A'. (Although the frequency of that 'A' might vary at various times and parts of the world, an orchestra is largely self consistent.) 'Neutral' becomes a relative term of comparison; it is not an objective reality. "X component is more neutral than Y" often means X has less of something that Y presents, or X sounds more like some third component.

So, in jest, yes the OP is a trap: it begs the question that something exists ('neutrality') by positing it in order to argue against it. Sometimes this is called a strawman argument.

I'm quite content leaving the mixing and engineering to professionals. And yes, some are generally accepted as better than others.

In the high-end world, at least in my observation, tone controls typically are not accepted and typically we reject fiddling with the source. If we prefer a different sound, our tendency is to change equipment instead.

Exactly. People look at labels and deadwax to see who the engineers and mixers were

Audiophiles much prefer to use cables or so called isolation devices to change the tone of the system - Its a lot more expensive, so its go to be better

I'm all for tone controls for as long as they are done in such a way that they are outside of the signal path when not in use. For me they would come in handy for people that maybe have to listen lower than the optimal volume due to specific circumstances. I definitely would rather have the flexibility of tone controls instead of a fixed curve loudness switch.

tima said:

In the high-end world, at least in my observation, tone controls typically are not accepted and typically we reject fiddling with the source. If we prefer a different sound, our tendency is to change equipment instead.

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But what if 'typically' is not logical? There are many human conventions that defy logic.

Al M. said:

But what if 'typically' is not logical? There are many human conventions that defy logic.

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Human mother, Vulcan father ... whattya gonna do?

I always lean toward the "less is more" philosophy, but I'm a guy who uses an autoformer, rather than a preamp or linestage, so what do I know? Anything I can do to reduce complexity, I see as a positive move.

Ron Resnick said:

These are all very thoughtful replies, gentlemen.

Now I will add another layer of variability: how engineers heard sound and recorded when he/she was 25 years old may be, and by their own testimony in interviews often is, very different from how the same engineer hears sound and would record the same exact studio session at 55 years old. There have been interviews of recording engineers who exclaim, listening with their 55 year old ears, that he doesn’t understand what he was thinking when he recorded that track the way he did 30 years ago, and that he would record it very differently today!

If one agrees with this, then one likely is committed to rejecting high-end audio Objective 2) “reproduce exactly what is on the master tape” because one accepts that what is on the master tape is nothing “absolute”; nothing more than how that particular recording engineer heard the studio session at that particular time, with that particular hearing ability at that particular time and his personal subjective mixing and frequency response and tonal balance and mixing preferences at that particular time. A different recording engineer would have made different decisions and those differences may have resulted in a very different sounding master tape.

(It is legitimate for an audiophile to adopt Objective 2 despite this simply because an audiophile chooses to pursue that objective. There is nothing irrational about saying that “while I appreciate that the master tape could sound very different than the way sounds I simply want to attempt to hear what that particular recording engineer heard and did at that particular time with those particular recording decisions.”)

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I never understood Objective 2 Ron. What's on the master is what it is. What gets to the end consumer as far as analog goes, is never exactly what's on the master tape anyway. Ultimately what we get is information and that information is altered in varying degrees of acceptability and retrieved and transduce'd hopefully in an acceptable manner as well. The way I see it, everything is a tone control in one way or another. I've just accepted that.

Perhaps what people mean by Objective 2 is not really about hearing what the engineers heard but rather drawing the most information out of the media in our possession. I think I would fall into that camp.

JackD201 said:

I never understood Objective 2 Ron. What's on the master is what it is. What gets to the end consumer as far as analog goes, is never exactly what's on the master tape anyway. Ultimately what we get is information and that information is altered in varying degrees of acceptability and retrieved and transduce'd hopefully in an acceptable manner as well. The way I see it, everything is a tone control in one way or another. I've just accepted that.

Perhaps what people mean by Objective 2 is not really about hearing what the engineers heard but rather drawing the most information out of the media in our possession. I think I would fall into that camp.

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Right, forget about "hearing what's on the master tape". Rather, try to get the most information -- resolution, articulation -- out of the medium. In many or most cases this will also mean a more believable sound, something that brings us closer to what we remember from live sound (unamplified live music, that is, which is the only suitable arbiter of believability).

Al M. said:

Right, forget about "hearing what's on the master tape". Rather, try to get the most information -- resolution, articulation -- out of the medium. In many or most cases this will also mean a more believable sound, something that brings us closer to what we remember from live sound (unamplified live music, that is, which is the only suitable arbiter of believability).

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Ron,

I disagree. Believable sound is an extremely subjective attribute, depending on listener and can not be directly associated with resolution and articulation. And just because it is life and unamplified is not enough to become an arbiter. Although many times I use live as reference, I know it is a dangerous game and can be misleading many times - we focus on a few details we associate to live and forget about the whole picture and the pure and simple enjoyment.

Make an exercise - tell us about the five recordings you would pick to compare with unamplified live music.

Ron Resnick said:

Did you mean Al?

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He confused between two people who are at opposite ends of the digital analog spectrum, the political spectrum, and east and west coast

The absence of tone controls, is based on an observation concerning a certain ARC preamp - that HP, in his infinite wisdom and perfect hearing - found added noise to the signal when the tone controls were engaged. There was an article based on this in his marketing rag. From that point forward the conformist manufacturers, desperate for a positive review, eschewed implementing tone controls in their equipment. Unfortunately the so-called "high end" is ruled by orthodoxy and conformity.

Understandable when an arbitrary review by some fellow can make or break a product. This is true because the consumers of "high end" equipment are for the most part an uncertain bunch. Paying stratospheric prices for consumer equipment leads people to question their expensive decisions. Consequently the high end types need reassurance and validation about their decision making. The net result is that reviewers have an enormous impact on purchasing decisions. Makes no sense at all if viewed objectively - why pay any attention to some fellow, even if possessed of self proclaimed golden ears - who has differing tastes and a completely different room than the prospective consumer?

I used to read the marketing rags - I really enjoyed the adjectival and adverbial frothing of JV, the "just the fact's Ma'am" Joe Friday style of Harley - and the elitist pandering of the rest of the crew. The rags were some of the best surreal science fiction I have ever read. But the question always remained - who cares what these fellows like or don't like? I am listening for MY PLEASURE - not to conform to some ordained orthodoxy passed down by self-proclaimed masters from "on high" or to be a member of some gossamer hierarchy. No - as Hendrix noted - I will be the one to die when it is my turn to die, so I will LISTEN THE WAY I WANT TO. (slight paraphrase on the last clause - from if 6 were 9 - I think that was on Axis Bold as Love).

This leads to the other reason why tone controls should be included with your preamplifier - YOUR ROOM has not even a passing sonic similarity to that of the producing engineer. How can any reasonable person expect what the mix sounded like in the studio to be even remotely similar in a completely different sonic environment? Therefore tone controls are a substantial gain to the MUSIC LOVER.

I fully realize that this rant will no doubt cause me to lose my "audiophile card". Who cares?

See you fellows at RMAF. Where you can harangue and lambast me for my unorthodox views.