Are tone controls necessary on an integrated amplifier ?

Nitin K

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Hi Fm's,

Off late, the IA's from many reputed companies come without tone controls. The purists would prefer it that way, hearing it through source direct . But there are various factors like untreated rooms, source(streamers, Alexa etc) for a large majority of listeners who may require those controls to set the tone to your liking. Very few recordings are good like Stockfish & many of them are at best mediocre or poor where you need to adjust especially for the old recordings. One could go for an equalizer but that's not the point.

For all practical reasons, I would definitely prefer the physical knobs on the IA rather than not having them or digging deep inside some menu to make adjustments. But that's just a personal point of view and may differ with others.
What would be your take on this ?

Best regards,
Nitin
 
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Entirely agree with the requirement of tone controls. In fact "loudness" control is also preferred by me. Even now few hi-end IA's like Accuphase and Luxman have them. For less than perfect records these can help.
 
Given a choice, I'd take a unit with Bass/Treble/Balance controls. It helps with many a recording or room.
I think their disappearance was more cost driven than because of purity.
Cheers,
Raghu
The mainstream amps like Yamaha, Marantz , Denon etc do offer these controls at a lower price. In the mid level Parasound Halo has them, Luxman in the high end bracket also offers them.
Amps like Rega Brio, Arcam, Music Fidelity, Peachtree don't have them considering they fall in a wide bracket of users.
 
 
Totally agree to his point of view, very practical.
 
I would prefer to have tone controls in my electronics. Imperfect rooms, imperfect recordings, listeners preferences all demand a tone control and a tone defeat switch too in case I want to be an audiophile for the evening.
 
Absolutely needed, its a shame many amplifiers don't have them anymore. Loudness compensation is very helpful when listening at low volumes.
 
Hi Fm's,

Off late, the IA's from many reputed companies come without tone controls. The purists would prefer it that way, hearing it through source direct . But there are various factors like untreated rooms, source(streamers, Alexa etc) for a large majority of listeners who may require those controls to set the tone to your liking. Very few recordings are good like Stockfish & many of them are at best mediocre or poor where you need to adjust especially for the old recordings. One could go for an equalizer but that's not the point.

For all practical reasons, I would definitely prefer the physical knobs on the IA rather than not having them or digging deep inside some menu to make adjustments. But that's just a personal point of view and may differ with others.
What would be your take on this ?

Best regards,
Nitin
@Nitin K I am the party pooper belonging to the other camp. i.e. those who don't like/are fine without tone/balance controls on an integrated or pre-amp. Heres my pre-amp devoid of controls for tone/balance/loudness compensation. Simple and straightforward. A volume dial, power & input selector buttons. Just the way I like it. ymmv, I personally prefer hearing the imperfections in a recording i.e. CD / LP so that I can seperate the wheat from the chaff but this is just me. I've been through this drudgery before, I am too lazy to be rushing to fiddle and compensate with treble/bass/balance controls for different songs on an album which to me becomes a total mood dampener. Funnily, ever since the Allo Boss 2 entered my life, all of the Spotify premium content I've streamed thus far has been mysteriously satisfactory to my ears and I've never had to yearn for a treble or bass tweak fingers crossed.
20220127_123920.jpg
 
@Nitin K I am the party pooper belonging to the other camp. i.e. those who don't like/are fine without tone/balance controls on an integrated or pre-amp. Heres my pre-amp devoid of controls for tone/balance/loudness compensation. Simple and straightforward. A volume dial, power & input selector buttons. Just the way I like it. ymmv, I personally prefer hearing the imperfections in a recording i.e. CD / LP so that I can seperate the wheat from the chaff but this is just me. I've been through this drudgery before, I am too lazy to be rushing to fiddle and compensate with treble/bass/balance controls for different songs on an album which to me becomes a total mood dampener. Funnily, ever since the Allo Boss 2 entered my life, all of the Spotify premium content I've streamed thus far has been mysteriously satisfactory to my ears and I've never had to yearn for a treble or bass tweak fingers crossed.
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Perfectly understand and respect your opinion Sean. You are one lucky person to be content with whatever you play :)
 
I've never had a problem with tone controls.
I always felt that they were very useful in fine tuning a setup.

There's probably a trade off when something is added to the signal path but I still prefer being able to dial back the bass or adjust the balance when needed. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese brands have them but for some reason the others have moved away from using them.


.
 
Hi Fm's,

Off late, the IA's from many reputed companies come without tone controls. The purists would prefer it that way, hearing it through source direct . But there are various factors like untreated rooms, source(streamers, Alexa etc) for a large majority of listeners who may require those controls to set the tone to your liking. Very few recordings are good like Stockfish & many of them are at best mediocre or poor where you need to adjust especially for the old recordings. One could go for an equalizer but that's not the point.

For all practical reasons, I would definitely prefer the physical knobs on the IA rather than not having them or digging deep inside some menu to make adjustments. But that's just a personal point of view and may differ with others.
What would be your take on this ?

Best regards,
Nitin
Another very important component which complements tone control is the ability to manipulate it remotely i.e. from your listening position. Having it on a remote or app makes the process of getting the right tone at your listening position that much less cumbersome or conversely, more convenient.
 
From my experience, if you don't have tone controls, you will require a very high quality source with good records, tapes and cds. Practically speaking, there is a lot of stuff you will enjoy and there is an equal lot of stuff which you will start cursing, branding these as low quality mixes, poor quality pressings, junk recordings, etc. When mainstream friends come over, you'll often hear - what is this? it is lacking bass, it is lacking treble, mids are too much, voice sounds nice but orchestra cant be heard, ladies will say - sounds boring yaar :)

Alternately if you have control over tonal balance and presence, you can make anything sound listenable. I use a Behringer DEQ 2496 featuring a graphic and parametric equalizer. Even otherwise dull and poor quality youtube recordings, can be made to sound listenable as a result. I have saved preset settings for different genres and sources of music. My sources are mostly records, few tapes, few CDs and a lot of MP3 and Youtube music. Works for me :)
 
I guess it depends on the chain used too.
I have never used tone controls on some of my gear but used on others. One standout power amp needed taming down and proper gear matching was Crown XLS2002.

Old Akai speakers I had needed to increase bass on certain combo's like NAD320 BEE and Crown but needed to tame down treble on crown XLS.

No Tone controls used:
1) RPI + IQAudio DAC > Nad 165BEE pre amp > O&B Power amp > QA3050i - Perfect and the best combo I heard till now in my Room.
2) RPI + IQAudio DAC > NAD 320BEE > QA3050i - Loose bass but enjoyable experience
3) RPI + IQAudio DAC > FXAudio Tube 03 > NAD 320BEE as power amp > QA3050i - tighter bass and nice enjoyable crystal highs.

Adjusted Tone controls:
4) RPI + IQAudio DAC > FXAudio Tube 03 > Crown XLS > QA3050i - this had a very crystal highs which needed to be slightly tamed down.
5) RPI + IQAudio DAC > NAD 320BEE as pre amp > Crown XLS > QA3050i - slightly controlled highs but lack of midrange.
6) RPI + IQAudio DAC > FXAudio Tube 03 > NAD 320BEE as power amp > Akai S-350s - Increase Bass
7) RPI + IQAudio DAC > FXAudio Tube 03 > Crown XLS > Akai S-350s - Increase Bass and Reduce Treble
 
My experience is that they are necessary. Since I don't have them, I have connected a graphic equalizer between by buffer preamp and the amplifier. I usually like the treble to be increased to get HF details because you lose out on HF because of capacitance of interconnects.
 
They are necessary for commercial amps. I needed to adjust the usual three band equalisers on my Marantz 8006 before I sold it.
With my custom power amp and tube pre amp biased / voiced as per my listening preference , I never needed anything apart from a high pass roll off toggle switch in the pre.Unless the recording is very poor I’ve never felt the lack of tone controls. My sources are either LPs or CDs and they are mostly excellent.
 
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Since there is reference to NAD preamps, I just wanted to add one more dimension. Some preamps have loudness, bass eq, etc, and on the other side, tone defeat. I love using loudness, when i was running my NAD 3020 via its own preamp and before that, when i used my Dad's 1020A preamp, the loudness was in constant use. The overall richness of the sound was accentuated. My current preamp does not have loudness but i have recreated the feel using the parametric eq settings on the Deq 2496

The best bass eq feature that I've heard is on the NAD 1300 preamp. When using a good woofer, it takes bass to another deep level. I can still remember listening to Phil Taylor drumming on the Motorhead album Overkill, using this feature on the NAD 1300. Sadly i don't have these NAD preamps any more. The NAD C16x series preamps are good with their class-A stages and I use the one which has been positively reviewed a lot, the C160 but I always felt that the tone controls on the older NAD preamps were great. Bass was deep and tight without being boomy and treble was really smooth and silky, especially on the NAD 1000. Ideal for playing records.
 
Since there is reference to NAD preamps, I just wanted to add one more dimension. Some preamps have loudness, bass eq, etc, and on the other side, tone defeat. I love using loudness, when i was running my NAD 3020 via its own preamp and before that, when i used my Dad's 1020A preamp, the loudness was in constant use. The overall richness of the sound was accentuated. My current preamp does not have loudness but i have recreated the feel using the parametric eq settings on the Deq 2496

The best bass eq feature that I've heard is on the NAD 1300 preamp. When using a good woofer, it takes bass to another deep level. I can still remember listening to Phil Taylor drumming on the Motorhead album Overkill, using this feature on the NAD 1300. Sadly i don't have these NAD preamps any more. The NAD C16x series preamps are good with their class-A stages and I use the one which has been positively reviewed a lot, the C160 but I always felt that the tone controls on the older NAD preamps were great. Bass was deep and tight without being boomy and treble was really smooth and silky, especially on the NAD 1000. Ideal for playing records.
Infact I too would use the loudness button or Subsonic a lot on our earlier PioneerSA 740 and Kenwood KA 5050R amps irrespective of night listening. It was as if the tracks came to life.

Would totally agree as stated above by others, that along with bass/treble, the midrange, balance knobs and the loudness button should ideally be there on IA's.
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
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