who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

FWIW, I was never able to detect distortion as a result of having tone controls switched in on any system I've ever owned or sold that had them.

Perhaps as a result of upping bass levels too high resulting in clipping that would not occur otherwise, but it was not the tone controls fault that the bass was turned up too high.

I have owned systems for over 30 years and only within the last two years with my latest pre-amp upgrade did I loose the tone controls. Losing them was just a part of moving to the new pre-amp. It was not by design. If the ARC sp16 I use now had the same sound but with switchable tone controls also, that would be icing on the cake.

I never used tone controls heavily however even when I had them. They were switched out 95% of the time. On occasion, they came in handy and added value without any distortion that I could detect. I used to listen quite carefully for differences with tone controls in and out, even with no level adjustments set when switched in, and heard no real difference.

There are lots of circuits regardless in most any pre-amp. Heck, our systems sre nothing but a bunch of interconnected circuits. One more, if done well, does not hurt if needed in practice based on my experience.

Plenty of preamp choices with Tape In/Out. With a tape loop and any outboard devise you can alter the original signal to your hearts content. I can't remember visiting folks who's receivers didn't have their Loudness buttons activated. I love bass too, which is why having a sophisticated subwoofer or two can help with system, room, and some recording deficiencies. Personally, I have two and they add a bit of life to some digital sources. Put on an LP and I have to shut them off.

Balance? IMO, if you need to adjust the output balance you have more serious issues and are clearly missing the staging potential of your system.

First Tone controls obviously add Color, there is devices in them that of course changes the frequency response and distortion levels. However rarely do you hear a bad sound or added distortion unless its a loudness button that overdrives the electronics in turn the speakers producing this to audible levels.

Now that being said BALANCE controls are virtually negligible unless a really generic design with bad resistors or something in it, this simply at Zero is making both the left and right signal balanced, but turning it one way or the other is simply reducing gain not adding color or changing frequency response as a whole. The same as adding a resistor to your tweeter in a larger size to tame it down, but fact is it still already has a resistor doing this so is a larger resistor going to add more distortion or just reduce volume? Obviously not add more distortion, so this is WAY overthought.

The balance controls today are fairly transparent so I would not get to excited about "Bypassing" these, but again old generic types could be just cheesy and cause noise etc... Where back then you get the crackle due to simply physical wear and contacts getting dirty.

I doubt anybody with a hi end piece of gear using balance could say they had it modded and it was much better without. Exceptions to the rule I am sure exist, however again its silly, and hey if you have a room that really boosts one channel in a corner to be louder than the other, its much better to have the option to balance it out than not, only other way is many options requiring a new room, or room treatments. I could see putting in a flip switch to pull the balance out just for those concerned, less is more sometimes.

Would really like to see tone controls make a come back.....but the cable manufacturers won't let it happen...

I don't think there's a cable company that has that much influence on what equipment manufacturers design.But hey,what do I know?

An audiophile and tone controls should not be in the same sentence, unless that audiophile has a hearing deficiency in a certain frequency.