who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

Old fashioned, cheap treble and bass tone controls were dropped because they added audible distortion and generally were of so little use that few protested their demise. (Quad preamps were perhaps an exception to the useless rule.) Useful, low distortion analog tone controls are very expensive to implement. The Cello Palette is a nice unit for a few thousand bucks. Digital tone controls are cheap and do not add distortion, so buy a digital preamp and have fun. In the mean time you can use the Itunes equalizer for free.

McIntosh still uses them and when placed in the nuetral position the audio circuit is direct. Not sure if anyone else uses them or not. But if they do it that way I wouldn't mind having them.

To drunk to read what's been posted, but if you want tone or EQ, just get an out board pro unit.

Tgrisham,

"It is a fact that at low volume our ears are less sensitive to low frequencies hence the loudness compensation."

Or could it be the system is not in balance with only a fraction of a watt?

Theo, Dynaco introduced that circuit in 1966 with the Dynaco Pas 3X preamp.

I do . . . actually a modern, high-quality tone control arrangement is something I've been working on for some time.

Herman is quite correct in the fact that high-quality equalisation is a necessity in many parts of the recording chain, and anybody that has experience with top-shelf professional equalisers can attest to the fact that equipment indeed can be designed that sacrifices nothing in transparency, detail, noise, distortion, musicality, etc. etc. in order to perform its task. But these units are also available in seemingly endless configurations, each suited to specific applications and engineers' preferences, and virtually all of them must be used skillfully and judiciously to get positive results.

The challange in a high-end audio context is to get just the right amount of adjustability in just the right ways . . . so that the desired, significant improvement can be made the vast majority of the time in just a few seconds. I've used several graphic and parametric mastering EQs in my various systems over the years, as well as a smattering of recording-console channel strip EQs, all semi-parametric in some fashion or another. From this I come to the conclusion that the "knob-count" should be 3-5, settings should be easily repeatable (especially for frequency/turnover), and work identically on both stereo channels. More than five controls starts getting really fiddly, and fewer than three . . . you might just as well have the Baxandall circuits.

I also feel that some frequency-variability is necessary . . . simple five-to-seven-band graphics (i.e. McIntosh) never seem to have the bands quite where they're needed, and using two adjacent bands together usually starts messing things up. Narrower graphics with variable-slope or "constant-Q" filters also IMO start sounding heavy-handed.

Meyer Sound used to make a simple 1U EQ called the VX-1 that was my favorite of the bunch, although it has dual-mono controls and everything's continuous (no repeatabilty). Five knobs . . . low/mid/high with variable turnovers, all constant-slope single-order (6dB/octave). It had sensible range (+6 to -12 IIRC) that precludes the need for making master gain adjustments.