A Versatile Tone Control Circuit andPreamplifier

PAOLO SOARDO

Summary-A tonecontrolcircuitisdescribedwhichallowsa tinuousoneforprofessionalequipment.Inthepre-

largechoiceinthehigh-andlow-frequencyattenuation or boost amplifier here described, the complete set of curves for
and in the position of the tone compensation curves over all the
acoustic spectrum. These two controls, which are completely inde-
a fixed critical frequency is composed of fifteen curves
pendent, are obtained with structurally simple RC networks. This about 3 db apart, giving up to 21 d b of attenuation or
tone control is included in a preamplifier for music reproduction. The boost.Achoice is allowed amongthreecriticalfre-
compensation and equalization curves are reported in the paper and quencies for both bass and treble compensation.
the characteristics of the complete preamplifier are described. These tone controls were included in a preamplifier
for music reproduction to be placed between a variable
INTRODKCTION reluctancepick up (output level about 10 mv) and a

M O D E R N S Y S T E I I S of music reproduction are

usually equipped with tone controls which are
intended to compensate for room acoustics and
system defects, or simply to introduce at the will of the
poweramplifier.whichrequires200-mvinputforfull
power output.
TONE
CONTROL
CHARACTERISTICS
listenerattenuation orboost in the low- orhigh-fre- Inordertopreventinteractionbetweenbassand
quency ranges of the acoustic spectrum. A good tone treblecontrols,thesecontrolswereplacedintotwo
compensation can only be obtained with two separate separate stages. Each stage is composed of a cathode
andindependenttonecontrols(bassandtreble). Of follower supplying a triode feedback amplifier (Fig. 3).
course,theintroduction of thesecompensationsmust Provided that the gain without feedback is high, the
leaveunalteredthesignal level in themidfrequency gain with feedback can be written, apart from a minus
range. A flexible tone control circuit must allow a large sign, as follows:
choice in thehigh-orlow-frequencyattenuation or
boost, and in the position of the compensation curves
over all the acoustic spectrum. Some papers1’2 have al-
ready described tone controls of this kind, but the cir- The mid-frequency gain, where compensation is not re-
cuits utilized were generally somewhat complicated. quired, was chosen to be equal to one; consequently in
In this paper it will be shown that it is possible to this frequency range and must be equal.
designcomparatively simplecircuits
featuringthe One can also observe that the desired boost and at-
above characteristics. This aim can be achieved while tenuation curves (Figs. 1 and 2) are symmetrical about
the number of capacitors is minimized:inparticular, the 0-db axis; it follows that a boost curve can be ob-
an RC circuit with a single capacitor allows one to ob- tainedfromthecorrespondingattenuationcurveby
tain, with various resistance valves, bass boost or cut simply interchanging 2 1 and
as shown in Fig. 1 (page 196), all curves having the same
turnover orroll-off frequency. Moreover, a change in the The Bass Control
capacitancevalueleavesunalteredtheattenuationor Critical frequencies must be shifted a t will, this re-
boost,butintroduces a displacement of thecomplete quirement can be metif Z1 and Zz are RC networks with
“fan-shaped” set of curves of Fig. 1 along the frequency only one capacitor in the two impedances. In this way
axis; that is, a displacement of the roll-off or turnover one can vary attenuation or boost by changing some
frequencies, that we shall here after simply call “critical resistances and obtain frequency shifting by simply re-
frequencies.” The same holds of courseforthetreble placing one condenser, the two operations being com-
case (Fig. 2). pletely independent. Moreover, these networks have a
For a fixed criticalfrequencyattenuationorboost single zero-pole pair, and this meets the requirements
can be varied in discrete steps (Figs. 1 and 2 ) . For its of the tone control.
accuracy, this kind of selection was preferred to a con- After some trials, the network shown in Fig. 4 was
chosen. In this network, impedances 21and do not
Manuscript received August 26, 1963. appear at a first glance, but they are immediately evi-
The author is with the Institute Elettrotecnico Sazionale Galileo dent aftera A/ Y transformation. Referring to Fig. 3, one
Ferraris, Turin, Italy.
F. Langford-Smith,Ed.,‘‘Radiotron Designer’s Handbook,” gets
\\’ireless Press, Sydney, Australia, pp. 660-661 1953.
R. H. Rose, (‘Anadjustable shelf-type equalizer with separate
control of frequencyandlimitingattenuationandamplification,”
IRE TR.4X.S. AUDIO, v01. AU-9, pp. 112-117; J L I ~ ~ / . ~ U ~ 1961.
LIS~,

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where p is the complex frequency. The third impedance Let us examine the boost case. The fan-shaped set of
of the Y network appears in series with the grid and is curvescanbeobtained by changingtheresistance
then of no matter. The voltage gainKb of the bass con- values so as to satisfy (6) for the required gains, but wn
trol can then be written as is to be held constant. These requirements can be met
by setting R R?, from which one can deduce
R R1
1
R CR(R1 Ra) wn (7)
Kb=-------=- (3)
R Zz R Rz RC
PC---------- From (6) one then gets immediately
C R ( R I + Rz)
With the substitutions Rl (2Kbb 1)K (8)
where K b b is the desired boost.
The attenuation case is met by- setting 1= K1, fro111
Xvhich we get
one gets

From (6) we then obtain

In
the
mid-
andhigh-frequencyrange (w>>w,,
the gain is one as required in the low-frequency RB 1)R
range we obtainattenuation orboost if respectively
w n<wd or vice versa. The low-frequency gain can be where Kba is the desired attenuation. If in (10) we make
written as the zero-pole ratio R2 X1 and 1/Kb, K b b , we obtain again(8). This means
only that the same values of attenuation or boost can
beobtainedsimplybyinterchangingimpedances
and 22 as was already mentioned in the previous section.

Fig. I-Typical bass control curves. ,I; and j.?are

two critical frequencies.
Fig. 2-'r>-pical treble control curves. f. and f4 are
t\vo critical frequencies.

Fig. 3-Simplified diagram of the

tone
colltrol
circuits.
Fig. $--Simplified diagram of the bass
control
circuit.
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 Circuit Control
Xoardo: Tone and Preamplifier 197

Eqs. ( 7 ) , (8), (9) and (10) allow the determination of one, the other general requirements being the same as
thecircuitcomponents.Fig. 5 showsthecircuitdia- for the bass control.
gram of thecomplete bass control, l? is equalto 43 R simplified diagram of thetreblecontrol for the
kilohms. The critical frequencies are 900, 440 and 200 boost case is shown in Fig. 8, one of the two feedback
cps, and attenuation and boost can be varied in 3-db impedances is a pure resistance. One can write
steps.Figs. 6 and 7 show the complete set of experi-
2 1 R,
mentalcurvesmeasuredfortwocriticalfrequencies,
900 and 200 cps. R1+R2
The Treble Control
The treble control was designed again according to
the diagram of Fig. 3. Now low-frequency gain must be C(Rz+ R3)

critical
frequencies

E
9 "

3
IN

4
4 8

A A I

Components Values

C1=4, 7 n F
CZ=10 n F
C3 2 2 n F
C4=2,2 nF
C5=4 p F
47 pF
C7 pF

Fig. 5-Complete diagram of the bass control.

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 OW

Fig. 6-Bass response curves. Criticalfrequency is 900 cps.Fig. 7--Rass responsecurves.Criticalfrequency is 200 cps.

Fig. 8-Simplified diagram of the treble rontrol circuit.

Then, in the boost case, the resulting gainis given by

1l'ith the valves R1-aR, R z = (1 - a ) R one readily ob-

tains

where a=l-4/l-- 1 3
This equation is not applicable to the treble attenua-
tion, this case can be dealt with by simply interchang-
and ing impedances Z1 and ZZ. This means that in (15) is
substituted for l/Kib, where K t , is the attenuation re-
quired.
Eqs. (13) and (15) allow the determination of the cir-
cuitcomponentvalves.Fig. 9 showsthecircuitdia-
Low-frequency gain is one if R1+R2 R constant. gram of the complete treble control, R is equal to 250
On the other hand, the requirement constant can kilohms.Thecriticalfrequenciesare 900, 1900 and
be met in (13) only if R2+R3 constant, 14Te assume 2900 cps, and attenuation and boost can be varied in
Rz+R3= R ; it follows also that Rj RS.The high-fre- 3-dbsteps.Figs. 10 and 11 showthecompleteset of
quency gain can be written as curves for two critical frequencies, 900 and 2900 cps.

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1,963 S o a r d o : T o n e C o n t r o l Circuit a n d Preamplifier

Fig. 9-Complete diagram of the treble control.

CPS O M

Fig. 10-Treble responsecurves.Criticalfrequency is 900cps.Fig. 11-Treble responsecurves.Critical frequency is 2900 cps.

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200

Fig. 12-Bloclr diagram of the complete preamplifier.

Components Values

C1=220 n F
10 n F

500 p F

Fig. 13--Circuit diagram of the amplifier-equalizer.

Bass equalizer: position 1: flat
position 2 , 3 and 4 : see Fig. 13
Treble equalizer: position 1 flat
position 2, 3 and 4:see Fig.

Fig. 15~---Treble equalization cllrves: 0 position 2 (Fig. 13)

position 3
position 3.

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 Soarclo: Tone Control Circuit and Preamplijer 20 1

Fig. 16-Over-all view of the preamplifier.

(Construction 1.E.N.g.f.)

THECOMPLETE
The tone controls previously described were included
in apreamplifierformusicalreproduction,theblock
diagram of which is shown in Fig. 12. There are two in-
puts for low-level signals (gain 30 db) two “flat” inputs
for high-level signals (0-db gain) and two separate out-
puts. The tone controls can be bypassed independently
for both outputs.
Thefunctions of amplificationandequalization
low-levelsignals areperformedby a doubletriode
plate-to-cathode-feedback stage, the diagram of which
is shown in Fig. 13. The equalization curves have been
chosenaccordingtocurrentdata,and,inorderto
achieve more flexibility, it was decided to control inde-
pendentely the bass and treble equalization.
Bass boost is obtained with RC networks placed in
thefeedbackloop.Thesenetworksemployas few
capacitors as possibleinordertominimizeswitching
transients. The curves obtained are shown in Fig. 14;
mid-frequency gain is 30 db.
Trebleequalization is obtainedthroughRCnet-
works at the output of the second triode, the equaliza-
tion curves are shown in Fig. 15.
Distortion, measured with a one-volt output which
PREAMPLIFIER is five times the maximum signal required by the power
amplifier, is less than 0.1 per cent with any setting of
the various controls. Koise is more than 80 d b below
the maximum output level (200 mv).
CONCLUSIONS
Theindependentselection of attenuationorboost
and critical frequency in the low- and high-frequency
ranges of the acoustic spectrum gives a great flexibility
of to this tone control circuit, These features are obtained
with structurally simple networks; however, owing to
the large number of possibilities offered and to the ac-
curacy given by the selection of attenuation and boost
in discrete steps, the number of components is rather
large but in any case not larger than for similar equip-
rnents. If a continuous variation of attenuation or boost
ispreferred,itseemspossibletoreducesubstantially
the number of components: the use of pot,entiometers
in this circuit is now under consideration.
ACKNOKLEDGMENT
The author wishes to express his thanks to Prof.
Soldi for his contributions during the design of the pre-
amplifier and to Prof. C. Egidi for his valuable assist-
ance.

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