29-Mar-2018, 11:17
The fact Devialet come with tone controls was one of the reasons I chose Devialet. I want to enjoy music, not listen to what the almost deaf artist (Type in 'singer almost deaf' in Google and you get a lot of hits) 'intended' me to hear. I must say I don't use them very often and since I swapped the 200 for the Od'A I use them even less, so you could say that the better the amp, the less need for tweaking.
I'm not into conspiracy theories but let's have a go for fun; There used to be tone controls on almost every amp and everyone was happy. At some stage some smart designer decides to remove them from his new amp design so there's less quality loss in the circuit. That makes sense. A shorter signal path surely stays more pure. So other designers follow (It's less work so why not?) and before you know it, there's hardly any amp left with tone controls. So what to do about those pesky recordings that sound thin, bright or boring? Cables! By changing your cables you can tweak the sound of your system. So the fact that amplifier designers have become too lazy to try and design better quality tone controls has helped the cable manufacturer's business. And now there's all these boxes @Confused is playing with. Are they making the music purer or are they just changing the tone? Who knows, but it's big business for sure.
I would love to have the time and money to buy a whole lot of that stuff and try it out but I'm just too busy and poor / tight to do so. So for now it's tone controls that will have to do the job, and with 40,000 settings it'll keep me quite busy.
As @IanG-UK says, acoustic foam has a big impact on the way the room sounds. As an example; I posted here a while ago that my new living room sounded fantastic with the Key LS50W in it before the plaster board went up. It was just all fibre glass insulation all around. Now the plaster board is in but the room still empty, there's a 2.15 second echo in the room when I open the window latch. I tested it the other day because I was surprised by that echo. I knew it was bad but then I opened that latch and the sound just hung around I just had to time it. I tried three times and they all came out around the 2.15 second mark. Just think about that; a sound comes from your speaker and will mix with the next 2.15 seconds of music coming from that same speaker, which then mixes with the next 2.15 seconds...you get the idea. It's a mess that no room correction or tone controls will ever be able to fix.
I'm not into conspiracy theories but let's have a go for fun; There used to be tone controls on almost every amp and everyone was happy. At some stage some smart designer decides to remove them from his new amp design so there's less quality loss in the circuit. That makes sense. A shorter signal path surely stays more pure. So other designers follow (It's less work so why not?) and before you know it, there's hardly any amp left with tone controls. So what to do about those pesky recordings that sound thin, bright or boring? Cables! By changing your cables you can tweak the sound of your system. So the fact that amplifier designers have become too lazy to try and design better quality tone controls has helped the cable manufacturer's business. And now there's all these boxes @Confused is playing with. Are they making the music purer or are they just changing the tone? Who knows, but it's big business for sure.
I would love to have the time and money to buy a whole lot of that stuff and try it out but I'm just too busy and poor / tight to do so. So for now it's tone controls that will have to do the job, and with 40,000 settings it'll keep me quite busy.
As @IanG-UK says, acoustic foam has a big impact on the way the room sounds. As an example; I posted here a while ago that my new living room sounded fantastic with the Key LS50W in it before the plaster board went up. It was just all fibre glass insulation all around. Now the plaster board is in but the room still empty, there's a 2.15 second echo in the room when I open the window latch. I tested it the other day because I was surprised by that echo. I knew it was bad but then I opened that latch and the sound just hung around I just had to time it. I tried three times and they all came out around the 2.15 second mark. Just think about that; a sound comes from your speaker and will mix with the next 2.15 seconds of music coming from that same speaker, which then mixes with the next 2.15 seconds...you get the idea. It's a mess that no room correction or tone controls will ever be able to fix.
Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,
Dynaudio C1 MkII.
Jim Smith's GBS.
Northern NSW Australia.
Dynaudio C1 MkII.
Jim Smith's GBS.
Northern NSW Australia.
