Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Tone Controls on Receivers (HK)

I currently own an HK7300 that I am happy with; however, I recently moved to a new home w/all hardwoods and very reflective properties. I have tamed the room as much as the wife will allow with rugs, furniture, etc; however, I have felt the need to adjust the tone controls as the sound coming from my AXIOM M60's is way too "high/trebly/fatiguing". I have 3 questions around this:

First- What is the frequency usually of a treble control? I have cut it between 4-6 db and am wondering it that is not an ideal solution.

Second- When I cut this, if I also cut the Bass the same amount am I ultimately negating the change? Or are the two frequencies potentially both reflecting and therefore, reducing both tone controls and raising the overall volume a good thing?

Third- For HK owners, aren't the tone controls supposed to be different for each input? Mine appear to be universal regardless of whether or not I select "Global or Independent" in the Speaker Setup.

Thanks for any advice on Tone Controls in general.

tone controls themselves are ideally not an idea solution, So crank on em until it sounds the way you want since thats what really matters.

General consensus is that you don't want to mess with tone controls. I would try adjusting speaker angle and think of other ways to treat the room .

Axiom used to make available a resistor of some kind you could install which would "tame" the treble a bit for such instances as yours. You might contact them. The hard core car audio folks run a seperate amp for the tweets specificaly so they can dial in the tweets with the amp's gain control. I don't know if axioms allow that type of setup, but that would be an option to consider if it comes to that.

Kris, tone controls can vary both in the amount of maximum boost or cut provided and the frequency at which that occurs. Most receivers have that frequency at a set number(one of my receivers has a choice of three frequencies), usually around 10KHz for maximum treble boost/cut. What you describe would result in the cut beginning above about 1KHz, sloping down about 3dB at 5KHZ, reaching 5dB down around 10KHz and then staying about constant above that frequency. If the problem is upper mids/treble, there's no reason to also cut the bass/lower mids.

Yes, the tone controls affect all inputs when they're adjusted; if a different setting is wanted for a different type of material it has to be changed manually.

If Randy's suggestion of further room treatment isn't feasible, as you seem to indicate, then use the tone controls to get the most pleasing result; tone controls are there to be used when necessary.