Vacuum tubed tone control???

A company called PSE used to make a hybrid pre-amp that had tone controls of an unusual design. As I understand it, the tone control switches somehow adjusted the current to the tubes as you switched them...which didn't interfere with the signal path...just changed the "flavor" of the sound a bit. (Please understand that I'm a complete idiot when it comes to comprehending electricity, so I may be describing this incorrectly.) I thought it was a great idea, and have one of the pre-amps, but apparently they're not made anymore.

I'd be curious if anybody knows more about this. Seems like a potentially fruitful area to work on, for those of us who (perhaps secretly) wish we still had tone controls, regardless of the high-end bias against them.

It's taken me this long to figure it out, but McIntosh offers a "high dollar" pre-amp with tone controls! I think it's the C2200, or something like that. According to the reviews, it's pretty good. That having been said, I wonder what it sounds like compared to the usual suspects, ARC, CJ, Cary?

What an innovative idea! A tone control. Who would have thunk it?

(I wish some of our favorite mfrs would wake up and install switchable tone controls in at least some of their lines. Some of us--the ones who are sick of "really accurate" systems on which 30+% of our CDs (including many we would REALLY like to listen to) are unlistenable--would probably pay extra for the privilege of being able to monkey with the sound of those 30% of our CDs, so we can hear them with some modicum of pleasure.)

Talon4 and Tvad are making very real points that shouldn't require Nomex suits in order to voice safely.

For 18 months during 2004-2005, I was living as an expat in an apartment in Holland, and had to "make do" with a simple Linn Klassic system that cost about $1,700. Somewhat to my surprise, I really, really enjoyed it. Almost everything sounded at least acceptable on it, and many CDs were quite sensuously pleasing. Sure, it wasn't "high-end." And it was obviously rolled off in the top. But I had a lot of happy sessions with it, nevertheless.

In the 2 years I've been back, I feel like I've been in a constant battle with the high-end system I left behind (and its various successors) to obtain a consistently pleasing and pleasant sound (as some of you may have noticed from my other posts). I've been using some darn good equipment, that too often tells me (a) how lousy some recordings sound, or (b) how lousy some mastering jobs are, or (c) both at the same time. I have really had to step back and ask myself, why am I doing this? Maybe it's just me, but finding equipment that tells you about the detail in a recording, without rubbing your nose in the all-too-frequent negative aspects of that detail, seems to be a major, major challenge. And I feel very sympathetic to those that seem to suffer from that same frustration, and am very glad to have the resource of the Audiogon forum in which to vent those concerns.