who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

"Don't need them; don't want them. And I don't want to pay for the cost increase that the inclusion of high quality tone controls in a product would lead to; this stuff is expensive enough as it is!"

Al - I feel the same. I want neutral system that plays what artist intended/approved. For the same reason I don't climb the stage during concert to adjust their tone to my liking.

I also noticed that with inexpensive receiver and speakers I had long time ago every record sounded bad without tone adjustment plus highs and lows were disappearing at low volumes. Today with very simple but better quality system (DAC+Power amp) every CD sounds different but nice and at low volume bass and treble are still there. I have no explanation for that but I would rather invest in quality than number of pieces in the chain. Tone controls or equalizers might help with bad room acoustics but it should be fixed with room treatments without sacrificing transparency.

"balance and timbre back to what our experience indicates sounds real."

Don't go there - there was another thread few hundred posts long where nobody at the end could agree what is real (including musicians):

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ymisc&1257469878&read&keyw&zzneutrality

Carlos269 - It depends how you approach it. I wouldn't adjust bass on my bass heavy or bass light CDs because it changes character of performer/performance. Some CDs are recorded darkish and some with too much treble and again, I don't want to adjust anything to equalize it.

I can see value of high quality equalizer to compensate for the room acoustics if it cannot be done by treatments but don't have any experience with that. Simple tone controls are just not for me. I don't mind them as long as I can bypass them and don't have to pay for them.

"Some recordings just have an off stereo balance"

Daverz - I noticed that. Most often they move to the left but I don't mind (I'm a democrat).

"This hobby is supposed to be about enjoying your favorite music"

There are different forums for that. My late relative really enjoyed the music on really bad transistor radio.

"with or without tone controls is just a means to an end"

That's exactly what Audio Forum is about - "means".

Rleff - Most of hi-end preamps don't have tone controls while practically every cheap system has them. It suggests to me, that it is very inexpensive to make it cheap and very expensive to make it right.

I also suspect that nature of recording (or system) deficiency is more complex than "Treble" and "Bass" and using tone controls (that affect whole harmonic structure) can do more harm than good.

I want to hear bassy record bassy and bright recording bright - the way it was intended and not to adjust/normalize them to sound the same.

Mcphersn - nobody wants 19 year old intern to affect recorded sound. The difference here is that the only think I can do about it is to select good recordings.

I want to have system as transparent and neutral as possible to avoid further damage.

Nature of recording deficiency is more complicated than treble and bass. Adjusting bass and treble affects whole harmonic structure and can make more harm than good. Additional stages containing capacitors reduce transparency. Less is more.

It is interesting that with cheap amp and speakers nothing sounded right and I had to adjust tone all the time. With good amp and very good speakers I don't have any desire to adjust. I don't need tone controls and don't want to pay for them. Fortunately most of high end amps don't have it. If you feel you need them - that's fine. There is no right or wrong here.