who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

Seriously, the biggest problem I have always had with tone controls (done well) is that I am too lazy to try to tweak things to perfection all the time. Recordings are too variable to ever even attempt this even if one had the tools. You'd spend all your time tweaking and little listening. I prefer things the other way around.

However, on the occasions I have attempted to tweak sound to perfection using tone controls, signal processors, etc, the results are generally superior to what I started with.

05-21-10: Carlos269
...this whole concept of "Absolute Sound" (the basis for Audiophilia) is so bogus as we all perceive sound slightly differently due to anatomical differences.

Bullseye.

Someone should Permaplaque that statement.

I disagree. Let's say you have somebody in your room singing a song. Even if we all hear it differently we are all hearing the same thing. If you could record it and play it back so the exact same sound waves were produced (absolute sound) then we would all say we were hearing an exact copy even if we all heard it differently.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with altering the sound to suit personal taste, but it would be nice to start with an exact copy of the original.

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HErman,

That's fine but one can argue that that is not what you hear in reality with most recordings. You hear a transformed version that sounds the way the producer wants it to sound. The producer also had all kinds of gadgetry to use in order to get it to sound the way he wants.

If you think you can make it sound better, then tone controls, processors and such are the tools that enable that.

If.....

No doubt, every recording we have is an altered version of reality, an altered version of the absolute. That wasn't my point. My point was if we could reproduce the original sound exactly then hearing differences don't factor in.

The argument that was presented was that the pursuit of the absolute is pointless because we all hear differently. I say that makes no difference. If we hear the same source then even if we hear it differently we should be able to tell when it changes. Your absolute and mine may differ, our brains may interpret the sound of a trumpet being played in front of us in a different manner, but we should both be able to tell when the sound of that particular trumpet changes.

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