Balanced Tone Control or EQ?

AvsFan · « **on:** 11 Jul 2020, 01:11 am »

I've been doing a lot of research and think I want to add a tone control or eq to my system. In specific, I want to boost the midbass and mid range some. I love that kick in the chest feel of the drums/kick drums and the typical frequency response is 40-300hz. Any ideas? Schiit has one but not in the frequency range I am interested in.

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #1 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 02:17 am »

Do you fell need of tone controls why your speakers are bad, have xover or what?

SET Man · « **Reply #2 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 03:43 am »

Hey!

Hmmm... 40-300hz? That's pretty much the bass range to lower mid there.

Before putting EQ or tone control in the signal chain of your system. I would play around with speaker placement first. Maybe move them closer to the front wall and/or side wall to reinforce the bass a bit? Every room have bumps and suck outs so, there's no easy way to do this but to move speaker around to find out the best compromise... even an inch can make a different.

Or maybe you just need a bigger speaker for the room.

Buddy

Mike-48 · « **Reply #3 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 06:18 am »

If you described your system and the room it's in, including its acoustics, people could give more informed advice. Oh, and your budget.

JLM · « **Reply #4 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 12:46 pm »

AvsFan, tone controls have a limited range of adjustments and EQ is another old school solution (rather expensive and can be noisy). Can you add DSP (digital signal processing) software to your system? Easy if you're using a computer as a source, if not miniDSP has hardware solutions. Using DSP allows you to first measure the room/speaker setup to determine if where the fault lies (room, speakers, setup, or your tastes) and make adjustments and then re-measure. You can even add room treatments to see if that helps. REW (room eq wizard) is free software and powerful but not easy to master. Dirac isn't free or as powerful but easy to use and is what miniDSP uses. Both require use of a calibrated USB microphone for testing purposes.

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #5 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 04:13 pm »

A cheap way to increase the bass are stuffing inside the box with the suited material to up bass freq among other internal treatment as paint mate black>
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=100689.0

WGH · « **Reply #6 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 06:34 pm »

A Xilica 4080 active crossover, it has a wide range of integration options as well as correction for the room. You may end up over driving the speakers leading to more distortion. A sealed sub would give you the kick you want.

nickd · « **Reply #7 on:** 11 Jul 2020, 09:27 pm »

Best mid bass and lower mid kick I have had in my room was a pair of Altec model 14’s up close to the back wall. Room perfect DSP correction used to clean things up.

Equal but different was from a pair of “Super V’s”. Dual Open Baffle Servo subs from GR Research crossed over at 150hz to a 12” P audio coax also running O. B.

I would imagine you and I share an appreciation for 60’s-80’s rock bass. Larger (12”-15”) paper woofers in a well tuned box seem to do it best. Room reinforced gain (front wall loading) really helps. The new audiophile stuff with small over damped woofers are generally pathetic if you like to rock. They just can’t do it.

I have always liked vintage Altec, JBL, Klipsch and even Cerwin Vega for dynamics and tone in mid bass through lower mid range.

If you like clean sound, you really need to try DSP room correction and take advantage of that front wall for gain. With good room correction and some room treatments for reflection etc., you can still get amazing imaging and real sounding bass and lower mids.