I like my system flat, no tone controls, no eq..........what is your preference, and why.


A poster on another thread here has encouraged me to post this. Been an audio professional and a hobbyist for 50 tears. I had my time with eq, tone controls ( even reverb and time delay units ). I am currently at the point where I need nothing to alter the recordings I listen to, nor to compensate for room aberrations. I have spent lots of money on equipment , had equipment on loan, of all types ( pretty much a bit of everything, for the most part ) and I have tweaked, and tweaked, and tweaked. I have recently tooled down to a much simpler and less expensive system, and I find I am the happiest I have ever been. Might be my amp, my passive unit, my speakers...…….yes, all of that. Yes, all of that is important, but it is the system synergy that has made me realize that changing anything with an eq or tone controls took me further from that synergy, that balance. I accept, and enjoy my recordings for what they are. Some better than others ( sq ). But, I am enjoying the brilliance of all the studio work put into them,  exactly as they were intended to be listened to. This is me. I do not believe in right or wrong, better or worse, newer vs older, yada yada yada. I have believed, and have stated, particularly in this hobby, to each his own. I hear fuse differences, power cable differences, etc. Some believe I was born a bat. I am happy of my gift, not just hearing well, but through the years, teaching myself " what it is I like ", which is the key for most of us. I am not sure where this thread will go, but I put it out there, and hope folks will drop in, even though much of it might have been stated before in other threads. Thank you A'gon family, be well, and Enjoy ! MrD.
mrdecibel
I guess I’m at a similar place but by a totally different route. I inherited a very nice older system. I’ve made a few tiny tweaks. I love the way it sounds. Rarely do I feel like something is missing or that I need to spend a lot of money.

I suspect that is a combination of three things: 1) My untrained ears. 2) A nice system that was well matched from the beginning (by someone else) that probably sounds pretty good. 3) Fairly decent room set up.

The only thing that bothers me....and sometimes it really bothers me....is that recordings I know to be poor (over compressed DR, and other stuff) actually sound poor on my system. The bothersome part is that there are knowledgeable folks that say the problem is my system and not the recording and that if I’d get an EQ and make lots of other changes those bad recordings would sound great.

I don’t know enough to argue with that assessment. But I think it is probably safe to say that if I go mucking around with things and spending money to make bad recordings sound good then I run the risk of messing up how good recordings sound now. I’m not willing to take that chance or spend that money.

So I’m sticking with what I’ve got and enjoying the good stuff and suffering through the bad when the mood strikes me.

But yes, as someone pointed out there is now a big movement towards EQ and lots of derogatory things being said about those who don’t believe in its merits. Hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.
A great system can often highlight the crap part of crappy recordings, or since the system sound is so nice otherwise it might make them more palatable. A paradox...the Schiit Loki is an inexpensive little gem of a gizmo that could be worth a shot.
I've lived in my current abode for twenty five years. In that time I went through a lot of equipment, with even near-desperation at times. I even had to go through moving my wood burning stove that was centered at the gable end of the long wall (the system was located firing across the short side of the room). Moving the wood stove made me able to situate the system so it was located where the stove was, the speakers now firing down the long length of my room.

Now, even though many changes have taken place since moving the stove, I feel very lucky to have what I believe to be a near-perfect room, enabling wonderful sound without room treatments of any kind. Speakers are well away from the walls. I couldn't be any happier, I haven't changed a thing now for a few years, except to repair/replace old equipment as need be.

I feel very fortunate to be in this position, and enjoy it every day without the feeling something needs changing. It's a good feeling, to say the least.

Enjoy, and regards,
Dan 
i really like my decware zrock2. maybe its the fact that my amp only puts out two watts or that a lot of recordings can benefit from a slight bump in mid bass? rather than raising the volume knob a bump on the zrock is my preference.