Tone controls are great

Absolutely not! I can think of nothing worse than fiddling about with tone controls when sitting down to play some music. I last had an amplifier with tone controls in 1980 and have never missed them. 

My beard and hair needs some colour to get rid of the grey and white out.

Is it ok that I have set them to neutral in my car or is that too anal?  

Haha funny post ! Long tiume ago, on some moments, i could agree with you - as i had some room problems (resolved). You are right, most of the time (or even all the time) the room spoil a part of the ideal (desired) result. But to add this feature would definitely go against the philosophy of the music or at least, what the artist wanted to do and to show- that's the big deal for each high end Hi-Fi brand i think.

After, to get a right balanced sound is not that easy in many cases. So ... understandable but kind of pointless. If you achieve a right room with a nice set-up, you could arrive to fantastic results, even with the "low end" Naim boxes. Upgraditis is an other story of course. In many cases i couls observe that many of us do not pay enough attention the room. It was one of my cheapest upgrade and one of the most important.

Curious to read further comments !

Cheers

I think you guys are being too hard on him. Personally I find I usually end up leaving tone controls at flat but given a choice of having them or not having them, perhaps as an added cost option like FM/DAB on the 272,  I would go for having them. It's a relatively trivial thing to do on digital systems anyway.

best

David

Tone controls are utter rubbish. You are actually better off with a 20-band equaliser if you really know what you're doing....

Example: snare drum's attack is actually around 2.5 kHz, but bass guitar's is around 4 kHZ. Their fundamental frequencies are from 32 Hz to several hundred.

boosting bass and trebble? You'd need a parametric sweep on a mid-range too., separate gain and master volume....

Nope - trust the engineers to have done that job at NAIM.

Adam Zielinski posted:

Tone controls are utter rubbish. You are actually better off with a 20-band equaliser if you really know what you're doing....

Example: snare drum's attack is actually around 2.5 kHz, but bass guitar's is around 4 kHZ. Their fundamental frequencies are from 32 Hz to several hundred.

boosting bass and trebble? You'd need a parametric sweep on a mid-range too., separate gain and master volume....

Nope - trust the engineers to have done that job at NAIM.

The problem you ignore Adam is that the engineers at Naim have no idea how the customer's ears are working, nor what their room is like, nor whether they like recordings made by engineers that don't have Naim-like perfection. Tone controls can help with these situations more than having no tone controls does!

best

David

High quality defeatable tone controls on Naim preamps would certainly add much to their price but I think many would use them just because no loudspeaker sound the same. A loudness control is also useful for low level listening.

That is of course very true David. I think they must make an educated guess though.I'd hazard a completely unfounded allegation that most customers don't really understand how the tone controls work though. 

Anyhow - I like my amps without them, you'd like to have them. Fair enough on both accounts

I thought the reason tone controls were dropped from, or were never used by, many high end audio gear manufacturers was that they essentially distorted the frequency balance and their very presence injected a degree of degradation in SQ by their mere presence - i.e. another set of (superfluous?) components for the signal to navigate with the inevitable loss that causes.

I do understand that they may help if there are issues with rooms (being too 'dead' or too 'bright') but surely this is at the expense of some degradation in signal quality/integrity which can never be retrieved.

Heresy!   Burn the witch!

JoexNaim posted:

....I'm a convertee.

To explain, my listening rooms were either too acoustically bright or dead. I spent a lot (and I MEAN a lot) of money on upgrades to find the sound I sought. Didn't particularly want to go down the route of 'severe' room conditioning (beacuse of the aesthetic compromises) but did apply some common sense furnishings, thicker curtains, rugs, chairs etc ( or removed if the sound was too dull ). I Never quite got there with the purist 'no tone control ' hifi route and it was ultimately frustrating. And not just Naim, quite a lot of great names.

Recently however, I installed a high-end amp with tone-controls and now find myself in audio heaven. Bit of a tweak here and there and the sound is wonderfully right for my listening room. I now find myself wishing this was a by-passable feature on Naim amplification. I know it's a poor mans room-correction but I have seen much talk about the hope Naim go down the road of room-correction as Linn have with their pres and integrateds, so there must be a requirement? Also, I am aware that as I age my hearing is getting worse, tone controls allow me to compensate for this whereas I guess room correction would not?

A good anology is the tweaking of a tellys vision controls from default. It's still a great telly but operating optimally for your viewing environment.

I know this is not meant to be what hi-fi is about but I have found the listening room is ususally the spoiler. Does anyone else wish for this feature or am I just 'not getting it' any more? Oh, and can I please have a Supernait 2 with tone-controls please? (Bypassable for everyone else, of course!)

 

Which high-end amp with tone controls have you got for the system?

Obviously a lot of folks will look at your suggestion with disdain as tone controls are mostly associated with AV Home Theatre amps and (low-end) "hi-fi" integrated amps, though I understand some niche high-end amps do include tone controls. The Harbeth designer is a strong advocate of amplifiers with tone controls too. Nevertheless, I don't really favour them for the fact that I know I will be listening to colouration, some adjusted or tweaked frequency response that isn't true to the source. In other words, the original sound should not sound the way it is when the tone controls are applied. Yes, it is true that the room itself is already a huge form of colouration, not to mention the EQ that recording engineers apply in the studios before music is recorded. That itself, is another form of "colouration" as different mastering techniques in the studios (by different companies and recording engineers) produces a different sound. Tone controls just add more to the mix.

For me, I surely do not want any tone controls on my amp although they can be bypassed with a switch. To me, tone controls that are provided in an amplifier will give the impression that the amp is inadequate or imperfect, and adjustments are required to fine-tune or correct the sound to the listener's preferences or circumstances. With tone controls applied, I will have the impression that I am listening to a "fake" sound, for the lack of a better term. A sound that is not true to the source.

Another factor is in the long-run I may not be fully satisfied having the treble or bass bumped up (or down) on the tone controls. At some point of time, I may just want to switch it all off for the reason(s) mentioned above.

Having said that, if it works for you, then good for you. You don't need to care about what others think or say. As for tone controls in future Naim products, only Naim will be able to provide some insight on this matter.

This thread made me smile. One of my non-Naim preamps has tone controls and is a lovely device. I was listening to a CD the other night that was a little bright and edgy when all of a sudden I remembered, hey I have tone controls! Went over and knocked the treble down a notch. Did it make the CD sound great? No, but it was significantly more listenable and enjoyable. To each his own.

Joe you paid your money and it's up you to decide what to do with your own kit. If it works for you then good luck. My first Naim was 32/160 in about 1980 and I've not missed tone controls at all since then. We're all different.

JoexNaim posted:

....I'm a convertee.

To explain, my listening rooms were either too acoustically bright or dead. I spent a lot (and I MEAN a lot) of money on upgrades to find the sound I sought. Didn't particularly want to go down the route of 'severe' room conditioning (beacuse of the aesthetic compromises) but did apply some common sense furnishings, thicker curtains, rugs, chairs etc ( or removed if the sound was too dull ). I Never quite got there with the purist 'no tone control ' hifi route and it was ultimately frustrating. And not just Naim, quite a lot of great names.

Recently however, I installed a high-end amp with tone-controls and now find myself in audio heaven. Bit of a tweak here and there and the sound is wonderfully right for my listening room. XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX.

Also, I am aware that as I age my hearing is getting worse, tone controls allow me to compensate for this whereas I guess room correction would not?

A good anology is the tweaking of a tellys vision controls from default. It's still a great telly but operating optimally for your viewing environment.

I know this is not meant to be what hi-fi is about but I have found the listening room is ususally the spoiler. Does anyone else wish for this feature or am I just 'not getting it' any more? XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX   X   XXXXXXXXXXX.

 

I'm glad you could find your sound.  BTW what's under the x's?

I think that if I were to go to tone control/room correction and the like I'd opt for a digital amplification system and simply move on from Naim. No apologies required. As the OP suggests, correction can make a lot of sense as age-related hearing issues manifest themselves. Struggling to 'hang in the fold' really doesn't add up from the standpoint of pure musical enjoyment.

I'm not so sure about tone controls, but I do like the Linn solution for room correction. It is that, combined with the significantly reduced box count which might just persuade me to change my allegiance. 

Might. I said might. 

I agree a very good quality tone control or audio filter can be great - especially in real world room environments. I think in days gone by tone controls were implemented quite poorly using cheap electronics giving the whole idea a bad name - But these days I wonder  how many people end up using interconnects and speaker cable as unofficial tone controls - and because it doesn't have 'tone control' in the title it some how becomes more acceptable but achieves the same thing - albeit on a more hit and miss basis.

Simon

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I agree a very good quality tone control or audio filter can be great - especially in real world room environments. I think in days gone by tone controls were implemented quite poorly using cheap electronics giving the whole idea a bad name - But these days I wonder  how many people end up using interconnects and speaker cable as unofficial tone controls - and because it doesn't have 'tone control' in the title it some how becomes more acceptable but achieves the same thing - albeit on a more hit and miss basis.

Simon

 

That's a very interesting point Simon and I agree with it.

Also I think there is a risk that in this sort of debate, "tone controls" is assumed to mean a treble and bass control in the old style. But other things are possible. For instance Quad for many years had a different approach, with a selectable hf filter, and an adjustable tilt control which raised or lowered bass and treble in a sloping way, together with a bass control designed specifically for taming bass from speaker/room interaction. Their current Alera Play product has digital filters which aren't exactly tone controls, but address Adam's point of yesterday that it's more complicated than just raising or lowering the frequencies randomly pre-determined by the equipment designer.

These adjustments are best and most cheaply done in the digital domain, which is why I suggested yesterday that it could be an added cost module in the streaming preamp which could be omitted for those who prefer no tone controls. I suspect we wouldnt see any such module for products which are mostly analogue for SQ and cost reasons, but it could be added to the Uniti and 172/272 and ND5/X ranges in the same way as Bluetooth was.

best

David

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

But these days I wonder  how many people end up using interconnects and speaker cable as unofficial tone controls - and because it doesn't have 'tone control' in the title it some how becomes more acceptable but achieves the same thing - albeit on a more hit and miss basis.

Simon

 

Very interesting vision, I think you're quit right. Never saw it this way before. 'Spot on' people used to say on this forum.

Oh for the days of Lavender i/cs, Naca5 and stock mains cables....   hang on, that's what I've got!

Happy days.

Chris

Room correction is just another type of tone control. I think that people of a certain age   range who have been into HiFi as well as music for many years, shudder   at  the memory of the  crap we had to put up with. But the game moves on.  As long as they are of the highest quality, invisible to the ear and are defeatable. And actually work as opposed to dropping a layer of distortion on the sound stage. Linn are in the vanguard. Naim are doing it with FW updates. It's getting hard to avoid.

Now onto balance  controls.  Who in their right mind would buy an amp with a balance control? Just treat the room, millimetre position the furniture, always sit in the same place and move the speakers about all over the place. No more pandering to this  LoFi rubbish.

And use the stock interconnects. What are you doing messing about with Naim's carefully calibrated settings, which as we all know, are universally applicable to any room, system, volume level and pair of ears. 

Interesting thread, and maybe an opportunity to consider various related things.

Tone controls, in the form traditionally used, simply lift or cut the top and bottom of the frequency range by a constant amount (typically by an amount variable up to a maximum of 6 or12dB/octave). That can help compensate for recordings that roll off towards the extremities, as certainly some do. I know there's  the argument that the recording as released is how the artist wants it, however I don't believe that to necessarily the case - sometimes it is simply down to bad mastering, or mastering for a perceived replay market, and other times it is technical, such as rolling off the bass to enable closer groove spacing when maximising the length of music on vinyl.

Tone controls can indeed also help a little with room response where speaker and listening positions are compromised, e.g.  excessive bass reinforcement due to corner positioning, or inadequate due to open space positioning of speakers intended to be against a wall, or with an excessively damped or lively room at the treble end. But in practice the major frequency related issues tend to be peaks and troughs in the spectrum, which that the traditional type of tone control simply can't fix.

Another factor is hearing loss, particularly age-related, given that it seems that an unfortanate number of people start to suffer hearing loss (possibly age related), in some cases just as their finances or upgrade paths allow them to reach the upper levels of system quality. Some degree of boostable response of high frequencies may help (provided no people of normal hearing are also listening!), subject to neither exceeding amp and speaker limitations, nor achieving such sound pressure levels that could cause additional hearing damage.

Traditional analog tone controls are reputed to have unwanted side-effects, which is the prime reason for them having been eschewed by a number of manufacturers, including Naim. Such is not necessarily the case if adjustments are made in the digital domain. DSP processing to tailor frequency response may obviate the unwanted side effects seen in analog controls, while they can also be readily tailored to achieve specific effects, including matching the 'shape' of a particular dip or rise in response, so as well as being capable of tilting the extremities they can be tuned to even out other areas of uneven frequency response. However, in practical terms for treating room effects the main benefit is the ability to cut peaks,, with only very minor boosting of troughs. Greater boosting to reduce significant troughs is fraught with problems, not least because if you have, say, a 12dB dip (worse is far from uncommon), boosting that frequency by 12dB uses 16x the amplifier power,  so for an amp with a max power of say 160W before clipping, the rest of the music would be limited to 10W before the boosted frequency causes overload, with heightened risk of damage to speakers.

Another consideration is that at low sound levels the response of the human ear naturally falls off more towards the extremes of the frequency range than in the mid band, therefore the frequency balance of music changes and it sounds different when listened to quietly rather than at higher levels. For this reason for low level listening a 'loudness' control would be very useful provided it doesn't degrade the signal (which was the original reason for eschewing the added circuitry of tone controls). In order to be accurate (i.e have high fidelity), a loudness control would need to be linked to volume, so it would roll in as the volume control is lowered, but also requiring a separate adjustment facility as it must be appropriate for the actual sound level at the listening position not the absolute volume control position, so would have to be tailorable to speaker sensitivity, room and listening position.

Although Naim has had long-standing avoidance of  tone controls, given the apparent deliberate shaping of response to emphasise Prat, and their provision of a 'loudness' button not long ago in the Bentley system and even IIRC in one of their hifi units, perhaps they may be persuaded that it is worth considering limited DSP in their digital products, to include an option for effective 'loudness' compensation, the latter properly increasing with decreasing volume not simply on or off.

Harry posted:

Now onto balance  controls.  Who in their right mind would buy an amp with a balance control? Just treat the room, millimetre position the furniture, always sit in the same place and move the speakers about all over the place. No more pandering to this  LoFi rubbish.

And if your room prevents such positioning? 

With the prevalence of remote volume controls these days, whether they be operating motorised pots, or controlling in the digital domain, the potential is presented for individual volume controls on each channel rather than volume and balance controls, so nothing more in the signal path than just having a ganged volume control, while enabling relative levels to be set manually on the amp and operational volume controlled by the remote.

I believe that below 300Hz we are listening to our room's contribution to the sound .Room correction is a very good tool if you do not have a room designed by an Acoustician and appropriately furnished.I also believe a lot of people use interconnects and speaker cables to try and over come room related issues ,some do very well but dealing with the issue in the first instance (the room ) I think is the best course of action.I have used Linn's space optimisation and it is a good tool if your speaker is on the list of measured ones .Keep an open mind as these tools work wonders for those of us with challenging rooms.IMHO