who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

Zydo, I had a phase linear 4000 designed by bob carver with all kinds of tone controls. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

"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.

The last time I recall actually using the tone controls when I had them was to sometimes adjust the sound of one source when my system was tuned for another, for example digital versus phono. Also sometimes to get speakers in different rooms to sound more similar. My system is a bit unique in this way in that I have 5 pairs of speakers in 5 different rooms all hooked into the same system. Getting each room to sound similarly good to my ears was not an easy task.

Then I set a goal to get each source and room to sound as similar as possible out of the box. Once I accomplished that to my satisfaction, the tone controls sat mostly unused. Now, I have everything pretty well tuned to a particular sound regardless of source or speaker/room combo, so tone controls are not missed.

Onhwy61,
You hit the nail on the head. If most audiophiles had any idea of what all can be achieved though the use of mastering level studio gear, they would quickly realize how silly the high-end's cable, component and tweaks/isolation/power-devices' "swap-trial-and-error rituals" really are.

One of these days, I'm going to have to make some time to post my reference system; as I'm now able to achieve everything that I want from it's sound reproduction, and all at a turn of a knob or two and/or a click of few switches. It so far beyond the realm of the high-end audio world that it makes the dogma of the audiophile's "purist's approach" appear not only stale and archaic but sheer lunacy!

You would think that with so many intelligent individuals in the ranks, more would have already figured it out; that it's all, after all, "The Great Audiophile Swindle!" But I guess that you need to know a little bit about the recording process, sound reproduction, acoustics, psychoacoustics, electronics and musical timbre, along with some common sense, to figure it out.

Carlos269- You are so right. We are lemmings into the sea! "Don't mind the man behind the curtain." On the other hand, what would I do with my free time if I didn't buy new stuff, change stuff around, spend hours listening to my rig, and log onto every audio website I can get my hands on?