Hi-Fi Music: Bass & Treble Controls

[Kiran.dks]

One of the top company namely "BOSE" believes pure music reproduction is reproducing music how it is recorded. They don't believe in putting those controls. For them it is like changing the way music is supposed to sound. Hence most of there systems don't have Bass & Treble controls. Some reviewers say that Bose is unusually expensive and some say that it's worth each penny.

This is in contrary to what other companies manufacture. They all have Bass & Treble controls.

[legolas]

To be honest, I really din't know Bose Speakers were designed with the logic you have mentioned. Either ways, We can change the equalizer characteristics of the song internally, if not in the speaker (in case of a computer)??

If not, I would really want to hear a meaningful explanation to back up the logic you have mentioned as to changing the original music...??

[enticer86]

AFAIK, most songs these days are digitally mastered that do NOT need any further equaliser adjustment.
Coming to Bose: they may not have these controls, but then they indeed ARE worth every penny. They may be very expensive, but then you need to have the ears to appreciate music.

PS: since the Original poster discussed Bose, i did not talk abt any other music player/ Earphone/Headphone

[legolas]

Songs may be digitally mastered. But, usually while playing in the softwares, either they should be able to identify the actual genre of music and alter the equalizer accordingly or we have to set it in the software, preassigned for a particular band or so...

But, I don't think BASS and TREBLE buttons alone will do any trick (for the reason I explained). An equalizer is what is necessary.. I guess boss systems should have it (not the speakers)...

But as enticer86 pointed out, BOSE is supposedly (i dont know technical differences) the best!!

[solomon_paulraj]

controls are a must... in amplifiers... not in speakers..

speakers having bass/treble controls have built-in amplifiers and are not of good quality.

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

I prefer playing music the Way it was recorded .

And besides passing music through a circuitry to adjust treble , bass will result in loss of quality .

[The_Devil_Himself]

Bose:they are grossly overpriced but I am kinda their fan,even their entry level headphones are awesome.

controls:I dont use them at all,just sometimes change equaliser settings from the software itself.

[PCWORM]

I agree with bose,, the inclusion of Bass and treble controls wipes out the real
In-thing of the songs,,and gives it a wieird Chirpy and thumping profile.!!
I even dont use equaliser setting while hearing songs, i usually hear all songs
on PowerDVD 7.0 which has no equaliser and Bass-treble controls...
It uses some sophisticated processing modules like Dolby prologic, Dolby virtual speaker which truly enhance the listening experience without any aural
distortion!!!

[vish786]

check out their pricey headphones they are enough too literally shock you !

[Ch@0s]

Bass and Treble controls are basically not worth it. I use a vacuum tube preamplifier and a solid state power amplifier. The only controls the preamp has are volume and input selection.

What treble/bass controls do is add another stage of passive filtering components into the signal path which in reduces the signal purity.

Also less said about bose, the better. It is *absolute overpriced crap*. Here is a nice read.

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

[PCWORM]

Originally Posted by Ch@0s

Bass and Treble controls are basically not worth it. I use a vacuum tube preamplifier and a solid state power amplifier. The only controls the preamp has are volume and input selection.

What treble/bass controls do is add another stage of passive filtering components into the signal path which in reduces the signal purity.

Also less said about bose, the better. It is *absolute overpriced crap*. Here is a nice read.

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

yes i admit bose is not d best, but it is surely amongst the best audio innovators..the other players in the market are onkyo, pioneer, klipsch afaik

[pushkaraj]

Originally Posted by Ch@os

What treble/bass controls do is add another stage of passive filtering components into the signal path which in reduces the signal purity.

+1

Originally Posted by solomon_paulraj

controls are a must... in amplifiers... not in speakers..

speakers having bass/treble controls have built-in amplifiers and are not of good quality.

+1

Originally Posted by anarchist

Controls should be there. They are required in adujusting different accoustic conditios, we can always turn them to zero position if required.

+1 to this too, because the music is produced in the recording studio under ideal conditions and even if the speakers like those from BOSE make an earnest attempt to give a faithful reproduction of the song by not giving the user any controls like Bass and Treble, yet the place where the music will be heard may not have ideal or near-ideal conditions so even if the music is faithfully produced, it would sound different than the original to the listener. What Bose means to say is that they have done their bit in giving faithful sound output by not giving the user the bass and treble controls.

Originally Posted by PCWORM

I agree with bose,, the inclusion of Bass and treble controls wipes out the real
In-thing of the songs,,and gives it a wieird Chirpy and thumping profile.!!
I even dont use equaliser setting while hearing songs, i usually hear all songs
on PowerDVD 7.0 which has no equaliser and Bass-treble controls...
It uses some sophisticated processing modules like Dolby prologic, Dolby virtual speaker which truly enhance the listening experience without any aural
distortion!!!

Ultimately what powerdvd is doing using Dolby prologic and Dolby virtual speaker is also changing the original sound reproduction. Also when you say that the bass and treble controls wipes out the real In-thing of the songs even i may say that Dolby prologic and Dolby virtual speaker do the same to the sound. No offence meant, bro(in fact i have tried the dolby virtual speaker and indeed liked it ). What i want to say is
what is music to my ears might not be music to your ears and vice versa

[nish_higher]

there's so much above Bose..its just insanely overpriced crap.and as far as Bass and treble is concerned--it should be there-sometimes u might wanna lower the Bass in a game--where will u find an EQ?

[PCWORM]

Originally Posted by pushkaraj

+Ultimately what powerdvd is doing using Dolby prologic and Dolby virtual speaker is also changing the original sound reproduction. Also when you say that the bass and treble controls wipes out the real In-thing of the songs even i may say that Dolby prologic and Dolby virtual speaker do the same to the sound. No offence meant, bro(in fact i have tried the dolby virtual speaker and indeed liked it ). What i want to say is
what is music to my ears might not be music to your ears and vice versa

Yes,,Dolby modules do change the sound but to make it feel better as u said..
another option is to use winamp or WMP with the equaliser and other setting disabled,,and did so well!

[Ch@0s]

Originally Posted by PCWORM

yes i admit bose is not d best, but it is surely amongst the best audio innovators..the other players in the market are onkyo, pioneer, klipsch afaik

Bose has never done any innovation in Audio. They just have a great marketing department.

If you tell me that Audio Research/Conrad Johnson/Thiel/Passlabs/Linkwitz Labs/Dynaudio/B&W or something similar has done innovation, I would kinda agree but Bose is rubbish... absolute rubbish. You can get far better deals than bose for half the money. Even uber cheapo made in india Norge electronics stuff sounds a million times better than bose.

[kalpik]

Lemme tell you one thing.. Quality of music is a very relative term.. What may sound good to you without adjustment, may sound bad to me!

[Faun]

I like the natural sound of music, so no basshunter for me.

It would be nice to have bass and treble control for movies and games.

[Kiran.dks]

Originally Posted by legolas

To be honest, I really din't know Bose Speakers were designed with the logic you have mentioned. Either ways, We can change the equalizer characteristics of the song internally, if not in the speaker (in case of a computer)??

If not, I would really want to hear a meaningful explanation to back up the logic you have mentioned as to changing the original music...??

Yes. Bose believes in reproducing the rich music the way it got recorded in studio. By using graphic equalizer, it's nothing but altering the original sound.

Originally Posted by enticer86

AFAIK, most songs these days are digitally mastered that do NOT need any further equaliser adjustment.
Coming to Bose: they may not have these controls, but then they indeed ARE worth every penny. They may be very expensive, but then you need to have the ears to appreciate music.

PS: since the Original poster discussed Bose, i did not talk abt any other music player/ Earphone/Headphone

Exactly! They are worth every penny!

I am not surprised to see many people voting for "Yes". That has been the case with most of manufacturers. I have seen some music systems with around 10-band graphic equalizer for each channel! So 20 in whole! What the heck? By doing so, Left will sound different than right channel. The music output in such case is entirely different from what is recorded in Studio. Who understands music best? A creator or a listener?

[Faun]

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

Who understands music best? A creator or a listener?

a tie b/w true listener and true creator.

[pushkaraj]

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

I am not surprised to see many people voting for "Yes". That has been the case with most of manufacturers. I have seen some music systems with around 10-band graphic equalizer for each channel! So 20 in whole! What the heck? By doing so, Left will sound different than right channel. The music output in such case is entirely different from what is recorded in Studio.

No doubt the music reproduced that way would definitely not resemble a studio. But do u know that there are many songs out there that have parts of them coming out differently from two channels. Listen to the beginning of the song "Aazmale" from the movie "Taxi no. 9 2 11". You will know what i mean(Try to listen to the song on an earphone, if need be, to understand how the sound "seems to travel" from the left channel to the right channel.) And AFAIK, that really does not reduce the beauty of the song. In fact, that effect is deliberately done. Similarly, if there are graphic equalisers available with 10 bands per channel, then they need not really sound bad with different settings on different channel. It depends on how they have been adjusted. Of course, that would make the music sound completely different from the original one. But then the one who has bought such a system, and knows what he has got, is indeed a music enthusiast who loves to listen to songs in his own way

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

Who understands music best? A creator or a listener?

I did not understand what u meant by "understand"?

[Kiran.dks]

Originally Posted by pushkaraj

No doubt the music reproduced that way would definitely not resemble a studio. But do u know that there are many songs out there that have parts of them coming out differently from two channels. Listen to the beginning of the song "Aazmale" from the movie "Taxi no. 9 2 11". You will know what i mean(Try to listen to the song on an earphone, if need be, to understand how the sound "seems to travel" from the left channel to the right channel.) And AFAIK, that really does not reduce the beauty of the song. In fact, that effect is deliberately done. Similarly, if there are graphic equalisers available with 10 bands per channel, then they need not really sound bad with different settings on different channel. It depends on how they have been adjusted. Of course, that would make the music sound completely different from the original one. But then the one who has bought such a system, and knows what he has got, is indeed a music enthusiast who loves to listen to songs in his own way

That's called "Stereo" and yes there are tons of music effects in day-today music. My point was that 10 band graphic equalizer for each channel doesn't make any sense. The swing which you said will vanish if right channel high frequency range is increased using Graphic equalizer. So it sounds different than original.

I believe that Graphic Equalizer's are useful in speakers which are not capable of producing original sound. Use graphic equalizers to tweak the non-performing Woofer/Tweater. That applies for all low quality systems.

Originally Posted by pushkaraj

I did not understand what u meant by "understand"?

"knows"

[pushkaraj]

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

That's called "Stereo" and yes there are tons of music effects in day-today music. My point was that 10 band graphic equalizer for each channel doesn't make any sense. The swing which you said will vanish if right channel high frequency range is increased using Graphic equalizer. So it sounds different than original.

I agree

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

"knows"

The creator need not necessarily know music better than the listener and vice versa.

Originally Posted by T159

a tie b/w true listener and true creator.

+1

[Kiran.dks]

Originally Posted by pushkaraj

The creator need not necessarily know music better than the listener and vice versa.

Agreed. But I assumed creator as a quality guy. A.R. Rehman.

[pushkaraj]

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

Agreed. But I assumed creator as a quality guy. A.R. Rehman.

Dude u read minds or something? u wont believe it but even i was going to give the example of A. R. Rehman

[Kiran.dks]

Originally Posted by Ch@0s

Bass and Treble controls are basically not worth it. I use a vacuum tube preamplifier and a solid state power amplifier. The only controls the preamp has are volume and input selection.

What treble/bass controls do is add another stage of passive filtering components into the signal path which in reduces the signal purity.

Yep. In my college days, I had a big craze about Passive filters and BT boards. I made my own Passive boards, connected to woofer and tweater and decreased midrange frequency as much as possible. It sounded good for particular songs and for short interval. As I ventured deeply, I recognized "rich" sound is not the altered level of frequency but it's the reproduction of "all" frequencies in a pleasant manner. With a BT board it is not possible.

Originally Posted by Ch@0s

Also less said about bose, the better. It is *absolute overpriced crap*. Here is a nice read.

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

I won't believe in such links. If needed, I can give some more against bose.
I am in process of reviewing Bose Companion 2 which I bought for 100$. The problem is I can't compare it with my existing sound system at home (in India). So I can do this in March after coming to India. That will clear my doubts.

Originally Posted by pushkaraj

Dude u read minds or something? u wont believe it but even i was going to give the example of A. R. Rehman

I dono whether I can read all minds...but I can read yours.

[Ch@0s]

What sound system do you have at home? Its upto you to believe or not but bose is complete crap. Zero value for money.

Passive components exist in all decent speakers. All conventional speakers of decent build quality have an L-C-R crossover network. Certain designs such as the thiel CS2.4 are phase coherent and don't require one.

[..:: Free Radical ::..]

My 2 paise:
Bose = expensive crap
Marantz = expensive not crap
Assembled box with things i put in (with bass and treble controls) = worth my 2 paise

even though i agree that its evil to adjust music using controls/equalizer, i would like to have that option

Hell, I even got myself a 24 band analog equalizer (that ****'s rare) along with a dsp for my poweramp. Never tweaked the equalizer though. My floorstanders make enough bass anyway. Used only for parties. For music there is my foobar2k on an audigy.

[W i d e S c r e e N]

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

I won't believe in such links. If needed, I can give some more against bose.
I am in process of reviewing Bose Companion 2 which I bought for 100$.

I have used the pairs for a week, and let me tell you
the Senn' PX 100 sounds 100x better than those.

Overpriced piece of carp is what BOSE is!

[legolas]

Ok guys, I was about to buy stereo speakers from Bose... Now, I am starting to have alternating opinions!!

If not Bose, what else do you suggest? (sorry if it is Off Topic)

[Kiran.dks]

Originally Posted by Ch@0s

What sound system do you have at home? Its upto you to believe or not but bose is complete crap. Zero value for money.

Passive components exist in all decent speakers. All conventional speakers of decent build quality have an L-C-R crossover network. Certain designs such as the thiel CS2.4 are phase coherent and don't require one.

The system which I want to compare with is Artis 2.1 Speaker system which I bought for Rs.1200 for my lappy.

Did you listen to Bose? Or it's others experience which is speaking your words? Bose Companion 2 sounds impressive for it's compact size. It is so compact that I can easily carry it anywhere during onsite visits. During purchase, it was only one compact model that sounded rich. Other models I saw didn't even have the depth required to produce good fidelity sound. Bose Companion 2 has a impressive 12 Cm depth... ..(See image).
Ofcourse at 100$ I can get a better 2.1, if not a 5.1 channel sound system which may sound better than Companion 2. But portability is concern.