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In Reply to: BBE - Is there anyone who does not need it? posted by John Kercheval on March 14, 2007 at 13:38:40:
a
Follow Ups:
So many recordings are bad. I am amazed that it makes crappy recordings listenable.
My system is fairly expensive. It works as well as it did with lesser systems I had 12 years ago.
It makes some bad recordings "more listenable". That better?
I'm very much a purist but find the BBE to be a good tool. I've been using my 462 for over ten years with mostly excellent results.
If you came over and listened you would be surprised that something so inexpensive could yield such positive results.
It's not for you, that's fine. Don't knock what you have not tried and probably have never heard.
Isn't being a wizard a bitch?
Sorry. I couldn't resist. OTOH, an EQ is an EQ. It can be useful and it can be abused.Kal
is what kept me from enjoying moving coil cartridges and tube amplifiers for years. I'm very opinionated and stuck in my ways for a relatively young person. My background as an EE has helped me and hurt me. Occasionally divine intervention (it can only be) occurs and I wake up with good new gear. I think I was drunk when I mail-ordered my first moving coil (Denon DL-301-excellent). I know I was drunk when I bought my first tube component, an ARC LS-7.
There's good and bad with anything and signal processors in general are a mixed bag and generally deserving of widespread skepticism. I think I was drunk when I ordered the 462 from American Musical Supply back in 1996. It was an experiment that actually panned out. It really is remarkable. The problem with it is that whatever it is and whatever it does (don't really know and don't care), the temptation is to leave it switched in all the time. I've used it countless times when it probably was not necessary. A few times I had a snobby buddy over and played something with the 462 switched in. Then I got the victim's attention and switched it off. The response was always the same. Something like: "Hey turn it back you ruined the sound"!
If it is a fixed EQ for the system, what does it do, numerically and on paper? What is it correcting? I'd like to know that before I insert a complex active device into my system and take the chance of mucking up what is good now.If you regularly adjust it to ear according to program, it is simply an EQ with different variables than the standard ones.
I don't doubt that you like it (and many other do, too, apparently) but such an EQ with complex variables is, imho, the same as the recipe instruction "flavor to taste."
Kal (who bought into moving coils as soon as he could afford them and has been in and out of tubes for decades)
If you are satisfied, don't change a thing! You'll just wreck the delicate balance that is so hard to achieve.
I've read a lot of BBE lit. as well as the descriptions of the BBE process in the manuals. They are a little vague and I'm still not exactly sure of all of the specifics.
I do know that the LF Contour can provide up to 10 dB of boost or cut at 50 Hz. This is obviously a bass control. It works because it has no effect on the lower midrange, many speakers are lacking in LF response and many recordings are rolled off. I set this control at "+2" out of +5 (range -5 to +5 like a bass control". It sounds natural, not shelved. This control uses circuitry on the BBE chip so maybe it does more than a conventional bass control, I don't know for sure. It certainly does not work as poorly as all of the ones I've owned, even ones with lower LF turnover selection as was common in the '70s.
The Process control is what "introduces the BBE process" to quote from the manual. I am not completely clear on this part of it. BBE is deliberately vague. Part of it is boost at 5 kHz. I've read that this is some kind of "dynamic eq", whatever that means. It does not seem bright to me, even at high settings. I set this control to 6 out of ten.
I mention the positive effects with Benefit and Aqualung. The vinyl copy of Benefit I have has at most a couple of dB of dynamic range. There is nothing below 100 Hz or so and no high end at all. The recording is lifeless with no air. It literally sounds like a transistor radio. Remember those? Having one of those when I was a kid was a big deal. Anyway my 462 makes such recordings sound pretty good without the same lousy effects that even the "better" tone controls seem to have.
People who listen mostly to classical do not need BBE. Even the bad classical recordings are listenable compared to pop and rock ones from the '60's and '70's. '50's and '60's jazz recordings are pretty good too. At least the ones I've heard are. Perhaps there are a lot of bad ones there too, I don't really know.
"People who listen mostly to classical do not need BBE." That's me.
I added that for your benefit!
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