Please explain the tone controls

[derekcohen]

I have no idea how the tone controls are set or work on my 120 Expert.

This is the configuration:



What does this all mean?

What setting increases/reduces the treble/bass?

The set up I have (Expert 120 into Kef LS50 Meta/KC62 sub (SAM at about 40%) is spacious and detailed on jazz ... until voice is added. Then the voice seems slightly recessed. I would like it to be a little more forward in its presentation. The profile is similar across vinyl and digital.

Many thanks.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Damon]

Hi Derek,

I'll offer a first comment to get things going.

The configurator screen you have allows you to set the frequency point for the bass and treble controls. So, rather than the bass control acting on a set and unchangeable frequency, the configurator allows you to select the frequency you want to be affected- cut or boost. The same selectability applies for the treble control. Deciding which frequency to affect is something that I think would vary with every speaker. Others will know a lot more than I do. But, for example, the range on an electric bass guitar is about 40 to 400 Hz.

Once you set the frequency, then, on my remote, a quick press of the lower right button brings up bass, treble, balance and then the knob sets the amount of cut or boost for bass or treble, or the side to side setting of the balance. Another short press and you're back to volume.

I don't know the LS50, but perhaps you are looking at 2500 Hz or 3500 Hz for vocals? Just a guess. It would be some time going back and forth between the computer and the amp with the SD card. It could also be that the mid range would come out more if the bass and treble on the LS50's was turned down a bit.

I'm not sure if that helps at all, but the rest of the crew will add the important details, I'm sure.

[daniel.avasilichioaei]

About vocals: Did you try SAM set to off, bass set to 0, and treble set to 0 (or better bass and treble disabled)? How do you like the voices with these settings?



About bass and treble setting from configurator: These have a huge impact on tone control result. If you want to use tone control, then you will need to try a lot with these settings values.

Here are some tips:

1. The default value in the configurator for treble (2.000 Hz) is completely wrong: it is much lower than the "normal" values used by other amplifier manufacturers. I don't know why Devialet chose this value... That may explain the voice problem you reported.
   
2. Here are the bass / treble values used by other amplifier manufacturers:
   

• Yamaha: 50 (sometimes 30) / 20.000
  
• Marantz: 50 / 15.000
  
• Onkyo: 80 / 10.000
  
• Denon: 100 / 10.000
  
• Rotel: 100 / 10.000
  

Currently I do not use the bass and treble settings, but in the past I tried these settings and concluded that, in my system and for my tastes, the best was with bass = 80 Hz and treble = 15.000 Hz.

[David A]

Derek,

The bass and treble controls have an operating range, bass from a set frequency on down and treble from a set frequency on up. The sliders in the screen you showed allow you to set the frequency from which each slider starts to operate so the settings shown have the bass control operative from 100 Hx on down and the treble control operative from 2000 Hz on up. When you increase of decrease bass or treble, the increase or decrease will start from around the frequency you set and will increase or decrease graduaally for a bit before reaching maximum effect at a frequency somewhat lower than the bass frequency you set and somewhere higher than the treble frequency you set.

The voice range extends from around 110 Hz (bottom of the baritone range) to around 1050 Hz (top of the soprano range) for the fundamentals, the notes the singer actually sings but there are overtones produced which extend many octaves above the note being sung, and the human voice can also produce lower pitches. Tibetan monks can get down to around 50 Hz and some baritones sometimes get down lower than 100 Hz in some music but in general we can say that the voice range lies between 110 and 1050 Hz. which means that if falls between the settings for the tone controls on the screen you show. That's probably a very good thing because we're extremely sensitive to the sound of voices, we hear voices every day and for a large part of the day if we work. We're a lot better at telling whether voices sound natural than we are at telling whether the sound of any musical instrument sounds natural.

So to your observation that voices are sounding recessed. Voices lie in the low mid-range which is the area between bass and treble. The mid range can sound recessed it bass and/or treble are elevated and, given the frequency range of voices, it's probably a boosted bass that contributes to the feeling of recessed voices. You didn't mention using the bass or treble controls when you described your setup but you did mention SAM at about 40%. Sam operates up to around 150 Hz and affects both the phase and amount of bass you hear, increasingly so as you boost the SAM level to increase the amount of bass extension.

I think your problem with voices sounding recessed may be due to your SAM level setting. What I would suggest doing is switching SAM off and seeing whether that affects your perception of voices sounding recessed. If voices no longer sound recessed with SAM off, then turn SAM back on but turn the level down to 0% and then start bringing it up again until you can just start to hear the effect on voices and then turn it down 1 or 2% so you no longer hear the recession. You may find after listening at that SAM level for some days that you start to notice a slight level of recession in the voices as you become accustomed to the change in sound and you may have to turn SAM down again a bit.

If it is SAM as I suspect because I no longer use SAM with my speakers because of it's effect on the low end of female vocals in my room, you may also notice a reduction in the low bass. You can try correcting that by adjusting your sub settings which will also be affecting your perception of the vocal range. In fact it's possible that the problem is excessive sub boost rather than the SAM setting so if lowering the SAM setting doesn't solve the problem, try reducing the gain setting on the sub instead. You may need to adjust both SAM and the sub slightly to solve the problem.

In the end, however, you may need to accept slightly less bass in your overall sound in order to avoid voices sounding recessed. Increasing the setting frequency for the bass control above 100 Hz towards the maximum of 500Hz won't solve the problem, it will just shift the point at which voices sound recessed, and while you could shift the treble frequency down to 1000 Hz as well that will really only affect vocal overtones rather than the sound of the actual sung notes.

I think your best options are playing with the SAM setting and your sub's gain setting. The other sub setting available to you, the crossover frequency setting, should be set as KEF recommend for the LS50 if they have a recommendation otherwise I'd set it to something like 80 Hz or lower to get the upper end of the sub's range a bit further away from the bottom of the voice range.

I hope this helps.

[derekcohen]

Many thanks for the replies so far. There is much here to get on top of.

In the meantime, I decided to switch off SAM. I was using Firmware 10.1.0 as the LS50 Meta speakers were written to this. Since SAM was no longer to be used, I loaded 7.1.3.  With the KC62 still the same settings, the effect was to restore female voice (in this instance Ella Fitzgerald). Wonderful!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[derekcohen]

Okay, I am feeling like a complete ignoramus right now. Switching to 7.1.3 was great. I listened to some digital, no problem. Then I wanted to listen to phono, only to discover that it had disappeared from the settings. How do I get the phono set up with the 7.1.3 card I have (downloaded from Chat some while ago)? I've forgotten how to do all this!

I did switch off the amp and inserted the 7.3.1 card, then pushed the on-switch for 4 seconds. There was a re-install, but I noted that (although 7.3.1 was installed), the reading was original configuration. On the restart, no phono. Switched off (normal) and removed the 7.1.3 card, then replaced it with the 10.1.0 card, and restarted. The phono came back (no details on screen). No setting up of SAM. Phono plays, but I am not sure what I have done.

Regards from Perth

Derek