You can have more fun with ypur hifi system once you accept that rock is sound, not music.

The rock musician shuttles his fantasy sound through the circuits of a hundred watt amp, compressing, expanding, shifting phase, not of a musical note but of a voltage variation that won't be a musical note for weeks, or months, or maybe never if no one buys the album and plays it.

There's no reason why rock musicians should have all the fun or all the toys. Shift your references a little and consider yur hi-fi as an enviornmental sound system. When hi-fi began you got an amp and speakers. Over the years the amplifiers grew more knobs, speakers multiplied, and information storage systems expanded. By 1975 the perfect hi-fi system includes reel to reel 10.5" 15ips tape deck, front loading cassette deck, noise reduction, high powered Japanese amplifier, magnaplanar speakers, direct drive turntable, and graphic equalizer.

The graphic equalizer is representative of the sense that you can be master of your own sound controls. It shouldn't be up to any other individual but yourself to decide the sound that pleases your ear. The rock musician initiates the sound in terms of treble, midrange, bass, attack, modulation, and other controls. In the studio the musician further shapes the sound, using graphic equalization and other adjustments When you get the record home and on your turntable there's no reason why you shouldn't continue this event.

Hi-fi systems have expanded much the way rock musical electronics and recording studio facilities have grown. The rock music user has more sophisticated equipment at his or her fingertips. If we step back and look at the amount of user controls on most hi-fi systems we can see that self-determination in sound reproduction is certainly a fact of consumer electronics.

The graphic equalizer is a unique example of this self-determination. It is the most recent addition to the compleat hifi system and the most advanced in terms of user controls. Graphic equalizers have equalized the studio to home transfer of rock sound. This piece of equipment lets the consumer adjust each frequency of the sound so that a ratio is achieved that exactly matches the vagaries of the consumer's ears.

Graphic equalizers are elaborate tone controls. Equalization is the adjustment of sound. Bass, mid-range, and treble are divided into their frequency components. These frequencies are then boosted or attenuated in relation to each other - the result is an alteration in the sound you hear. Increasing the relative volume of the bass frequencies, for instance, produces a more bottomy,

bass sound.

Ge's are more sensitive than-simple bass and treble tone controls. They spread the boost-attenuate facility across the entire audible frequency range. You boost one select set of frequencies, attenuate another, until the relationship of the various sounds pleases you.

Each of us is sensitive to sound. We hear sounds that make noise between about 50 cycles per second and 14,000 cycles per second. From 50 to 14KHz are frequencies that we hear and which may be louder and softer or not there at all in relation to themselves and us. You'll find that your setting on a ge for a 'normal' rock sound will reverse someone else's settings for the same normal sound.

Little skill or even understanding is necessary to run a graphic equalizer. The equalizer is plugged in between your pre-amp and amp and you start sliding the fader control knobs up and down until you hear a sound you like.

Buying a graphic equalizer is definitely not as easy as using one. Prices, quality, and capability vary in no direct proportion. The ideal graphic equalizer might include: 60dB or below insertion noise level (meaning the equalizer won't generate its own running noise into the signal), as many faders as possible to divide the frequency spectrum into very small units, two sets of these faders one for each stereo channel, a by-pass switch so you can run your system without the equalizer without having to unplug it from the line. Higher priced models will also assure, it's hoped, a certain dependability of design and the use of more reliable components so that the sliders are high quality enough that they won't get dirty or noisy after constant use.

A quick survey of what's available gives this cross-section of my three variables. BSR, the turntable people, make two equalizers. One is their FEW-2 10Control unit with a -80dB noise level and five faders per channel for $99.95. They also make an FEW-3 for $199.95 that includes 12 controls be channel to cover 12 full octaves and have two vu

meters ior precise adjustments. Shure makes two equalizers, one known as the Audio Master (Model M63) that is not a graphic equalizer in the sense that there are no sliding faders (thus giving you a visual graphic reading of the frequency contour) but is a very precise unit, the other is illustrated with this column. SAE and Metrotech also have units 'worth your consideration. If you're on a budget both Olson and Lafayette have inexpensive equalizers although you won't get the control and stability higher priced units provide.

If you treat your hi-fi system as a sound system and realise that how you play your records is as important as what you play, you'll find a graphic equalizer one of the most important features of contemporary stereo hardware. ®