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who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

I can remeber tone controls. They used to be on preamps, and integrated amplifiers. Then somehow, they vanished. I KNOW why they say they got rid of them, but really i think it was so cable manufacturers could sell billions of dollars worth of cables. Anyone else also notice tone controls disappeared same time as we all started to need 'special cables'? it's a plot!
I want tone control back on my stuff.
How about you?
Of course, they would have to be defeatable.
elizabeth
hififile
227 posts
 
I have tone controls on my McIntosh C2300. They are completely defeatable and are removed from the signal path when defeated. That said, I use them when I play old vinyl from the 50's and 60's. I can add richness to the bass, cut hiss, and make older recordings much more listenable.

I like tone controls!
daverz
477 posts
 
No tone or balance controls in my system. I do miss the balance control most of all. Some recordings just have an off stereo balance. And loudness compensation would be nice for listening in the evening.
orpheus10
5,988 posts
 
The posts on this thread are driving me into "coniptions". You buy music created by people who have been inspired by the Gods, and you want to mess it up with "Tone controls".
carlos269
73 posts
 
Orpheus10,
I'm afraid that this discussion may be too hard for you to grasp as no one is talking about messing anything up, but rather using signal processors to bring the tonal balance and timbre back to what our experience indicates sounds real. Philosophically speaking, it is no different than one's component and speaker selection or choice of cables, but in a more intelligent way.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
3,575 posts
 
"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
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