A thread for Basschatters who have an interest in HIFI

[prowla]

15 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

bit overkill for my needs, as I said I've already got an equalizer, all I want is something to cut around the 1K mark, just an amp with a mid tone control would probably be enough 

As per above, you can put your existing graphic eq in the Tape loop.

[Matt P]

@PaulWarning from a quick scan through richer sounds it looks like mid controls are no longer a thing. Maybe a pre-power setup with the eq in between them? 

 

Matt 

[PaulWarning]

17 minutes ago, Matt P said:

@PaulWarning from a quick scan through richer sounds it looks like mid controls are no longer a thing. Maybe a pre-power setup with the eq in between them? 

 

Matt 

I can't find one either, that's why I asked on here

[PaulWarning]

this poped up in a google search, no phono input though, are they any good?

 https://electromarket.co.uk/skytronic-av400-stereo-amplifier-400w-compact-home-audio-power-amp-silver

[Leonard Smalls]

8 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

are they any good?

Depends on what you want!

I'd say warning flags are raised by the fact it says "Surround power Amplifier" in the manual, but only has 2 channels. And that it claims 400W without specifying whether that's peak music power output, RMS output or some other vague measurement. And the only quoted spec is a signal:noise of 80dB - this is pretty low. My hifi amp is 115dB!

So I wouldn't call it hifi in any way - you're probably better off sticking with what you've got complete with graphic in tape loop as previously mentioned. 

[prowla]

1 hour ago, Matt P said:

@PaulWarning from a quick scan through richer sounds it looks like mid controls are no longer a thing. Maybe a pre-power setup with the eq in between them? 

 

Matt 

 

 

1 hour ago, prowla said:

As per above, you can put your existing graphic eq in the Tape loop.

 

...

 

4 hours ago, prowla said:

 

Well...

I am a bit of a heretic - I have a tone control on my Naim system!

The problem with Hi-Fi systems which strive for getting the best out of the signal is that they can also bring worst out of bad recordings.

I have one of these attached to my Tape in/output so I switch to that if the sound engineer had cloth ears.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bellari-Audio-Rolls-EQ570-Equalizer-Red/dp/B07PPQ3XWM

 

[Hellzero]

If you have bass and treble controls on your amp, there are 99% chances that it's a Baxandall type, so you already have that mid scooped EQ implemented, because boosting the bass and treble controls will "reduce" the mids naturally.

 

As said before any tone control on an hi-fi amp is kind of heresy and an hi-fi antinomy, so you certainly will not find any modern hi-fi amp with these controls implemented.

 

Should you want that mid scooped EQ, any external EQ device in the tape loop or between pre and post in/out will work.

[Leonard Smalls]

I remember many years ago, when I had a Leak amp and Richard Allen speakers, I wasn't get much bass due to low powered amp and relatively low efficiency speakers no matter what positions the bass and treble controls were at - it just sounded completely unnatural and a bit unpleasant. So I took the tape out and (1st hifi heresy alert) plugged it via phono to stereo 1/4" jack lead into my (2nd hifi heresy alert) Marshall Jubilee bass amp, which was using a large Yamaha folded horn cab with 15" speaker. Turning all the bass amp's tone controls down apart from 50 and 120Hz gave an altogether more pleasing amount of surprisingly natural bottom end...

[prowla]

52 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I remember many years ago, when I had a Leak amp and Richard Allen speakers, I wasn't get much bass due to low powered amp and relatively low efficiency speakers no matter what positions the bass and treble controls were at - it just sounded completely unnatural and a bit unpleasant. So I took the tape out and (1st hifi heresy alert) plugged it via phono to stereo 1/4" jack lead into my (2nd hifi heresy alert) Marshall Jubilee bass amp, which was using a large Yamaha folded horn cab with 15" speaker. Turning all the bass amp's tone controls down apart from 50 and 120Hz gave an altogether more pleasing amount of surprisingly natural bottom end...

A subwoofer!

[PaulWarning]

2 hours ago, Hellzero said:

If you have bass and treble controls on your amp, there are 99% chances that it's a Baxandall type, so you already have that mid scooped EQ implemented, because boosting the bass and treble controls will "reduce" the mids naturally.

 

 

tried that, doesn't work, I think the bass and treble on my Nad just boost the the extremes of the bass and treble

[Dan Dare]

5 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

tried that, doesn't work, I think the bass and treble on my Nad just boost the the extremes of the bass and treble

 

Your bass and treble controls will each have a centre frequency and those frequencies will be most heavily cut or boosted. Depending on the slope of the filters, there will be a gradually lessening effect above and below the centre frequencies (probably stretching over approximately an octave, maybe a little more). Two frequencies of "bass" and "treble" adjustment, as found on most domestic amps, are crude and inadequate to cover the entire audio frequency range. They're really only put there as sales aids by manufacturers.

 

If you really want to tweak eq properly, you need something like a 31 band or 1/3 octave graphic or a decent multi-frequency parametric eq.

[Matt P]

when i was looking through richer sounds many of the amps under £1000 had bass and treble controls (as well as balance), it might be worth a trip to a shop to try them out, you might find that one of them suits you. (many of these were from well known and respected manufacturers)

 

the trend seems to be towards adding features (DAC/bluetooth etc) though so maybe the mid control will make a comeback?

 

the one linked above doesn't look like a decent quality item to me, it seems a bit too close to the super budget 12v amps that flood ebay etc, they often add tone controls as a feature to try and make up for other shortcomings (power and sound quality)

 

when i was shopping for my amp i was looking for one with virtually no features other than plenty of inputs, I needed something with no phono stage (I already had 2 decent ones i wanted to use) and i needed a tape loop and enough inputs for 2 turntables,a cd and a tuner as well.  The Musical Fidelity one i bought was the only one under 1000 that met my needs, luckily it sounds excellent.

 

some integrated amps i've seen have a physical connection on the back between the pre and the power stages, this would allow you to fit the graphic in without losing the tape loop (i'm not sure if this is still a thing though)

 

Matt

Edited 16 hours ago by Matt P

[PaulWarning]

thanks for all your replies, as I've said I already have a graphic equaliser, a Kenwood KE 2060, which is in the amps tape loop, I only really use it to cut around the 1k mark, especially on CD's, which seem worse for the, what I can only be described as fizz, which also makes the bass stand out more, I'm a believer in cutting what you don't want rather than boosting what you do.

  So I thought if I could get an amp with a mid tone control I could get rid of it, but it look like there isn't one, so I'll stick with what I've got