Contour Controls

[Opus007]

Just wondering how many Rotel owners use the contour controls to smooth edginess when listening to overly bright material.And do you leave the settings for all music and ht.Thanks.

[bigburner]

Hi Opus007,

I use the tone controls on my RC-1082 stereo preamp frequently. Over half the CDs and music DVDs that I own benefit from using them. Generally speaking the better the quality of the recording the less likely it is that I will need the tone controls. Unfortunately a lot of the music that I like isn't optimally recorded.

Nigel.

[PewterTA]

For music, it's straight bypass (well as close as we can get). For HT listening I actually bumped the HF +1 for movies. To me it sounds really good that way.

-Dan

[sunshdw]

I don't use mine at all on my RC1082. I tried it on a couple cd's but found myself changing it with nearly every cd I was playing.

[Opus007]

Reason I was asking as I am a firm believer in leaving the contours alone but lately as I update my cd collection I am finding more and more cd's that need some help.Especially some of the 70's rock like Led Zepplin and such are needing some smoothing out. Thanks for the replies.

[wkhanna]

Some of my weakest SeeDee's get 'massaged' due to poor recording quality, and like you, I find many of them being from the 'classic rock' genre.

Otherwise, the pre-amp is set on 'by-pass'.

For my vinyl playback, it's 'by-pass' 100%.

[bigburner]

For my vinyl playback, it's 'by-pass' 100%.

That's my experience too.

Nigel.

[Gsrrrrrrrrr]

I look at the contour controls primarily as a means of solving system/room issues.

For years (with an RSP 1068 and currently an RSP 1570) I left the contour controls alone, thinking of myself as a purist. I finally decided that the room charcteristics (heavy wall to wall carpeting over a concrete slab) deadened the high end slightly so I turned the HF up to +1. I was surprised that this slight change made a noticeable difference. I also concluded that because I was unable to position my L and R tower speakers as far from the back wall as they could be, the bass was unappealingly boomy. Turning the LF down to -2 eliminated this issue.

I subsequently added a subwoofer, which added additional flexibility. The crossover for both the towers and the sub is 40 hz. The boominess appears to originate over 40 hz so I am able to set the output of the sub to generate solid bass.

Maybe I am just lazy, but I find that there are so many recordings of bad quality (at least with respect to rock/pop etc., not so much for classical and jazz) that it is not worth doing further adjustments on the fly.

[Opus007]

I look at the contour controls primarily as a means of solving system/room issues.

For years (with an RSP 1068 and currently an RSP 1570) I left the contour controls alone, thinking of myself as a purist. I finally decided that the room charcteristics (heavy wall to wall carpeting over a concrete slab) deadened the high end slightly so I turned the HF up to +1. I was surprised that this slight change made a noticeable difference. I also concluded that because I was unable to position my L and R tower speakers as far from the back wall as they could be, the bass was unappealingly boomy. Turning the LF down to -2 eliminated this issue.

I subsequently added a subwoofer, which added additional flexibility. The crossover for both the towers and the sub is 40 hz. The boominess appears to originate over 40 hz so I am able to set the output of the sub to generate solid bass.

Maybe I am just lazy, but I find that there are so many recordings of bad quality (at least with respect to rock/pop etc., not so much for classical and jazz) that it is not worth doing further adjustments on the fly.

I agree 100% about bad recordings.Since I use the bypass mode mostly I do not have access to the contour controls.I have found a different way to adjust to my liking.For smooth jazz,classical and softer music I use the rcd 1072 cdp and for rock I use a older Denon 1500 cdp for rock which has a smoother layed back sound with fuller bass that the Rotel rcd 1072 has to offer.I am actually liking the Denon over the Rotel so much that I may sell it.