To tone control or not to tone control

Artemus, I tried the old pre (BTW, a NAD; not Cambridge -- sorry), between the CDP & the main pre. Although it doesn't overload on low volume, the sound is, well... like throwing a blanket over the speakers. Strangely enough, the tone controls' effect increased with volume on the NAD; on the other hand, that's what ended up overloading the main pre --and distorting...
Oh well...

Bob, I had to take a look at that accuphase. It looks pretty good but out of my $ league.
Greg, When I tried mine it sounded like my speakers were under water.

I had the same problem with my densen-spica angelus setup (some recordings sound very thin to the point where I avoid listening despite liking the music). I ended up with a Rel strata subwoofer. This has worked really well for me : the good recordings are now amazing, and the bad ones are enjoyable. There are, however, still a few recordings which are not helped by the REL, maybe because it's upper frequency roll off is set at 30Hz, and the source material simply doesn't go down there. There are a very few discs that are not improved and no discs that are worse with the REL. I consider it a great buy.

Also, several years ago I had a friend with a Quad stup. Quad has some wierd tone controls which are supposed to "cause less distortion". I remember playing with them (I think they're called lift and tilt) and I was very impressed ... it seemed like quad had got it just right. It gave a small lift to the bass or treble, but not in the artificial way of a traditional tone control. However I believe that my Densen amp is more detailed than the Quad, for about the same price, so maybe less is more !? If this hobby were easy it wouldn't be so much fun !

So what did you end up doing ?

Seantaylor99
I replaced the Infinity speakers with Silverline Sonatas. A big improvement, but the biggest improvement in dealing with the bad recordings was to replace the Sherwood cdp with a Theta Miles cdp. Now all cd's are listenable. Obviously some cd's still sound better than others but overall they all sound good now. I haven't thought about tone controls or sub woofers since. Maybe a sub will come into play when I work on the HT end but I am just finishing the 2 channel with the purchase of Homegrown Silver Lace ic's and a dedicated AC line.

I can't imagine not having the flexibility of tone controls-far move value in having the flexibility vs. any minimal loss, if using a high-end piece.

The Accuphase EQs have silly prices, so here's a little secret from the high-end and separate music production realm-get a high-end studio EQ. The White 4700-2 stereo EQ is $1,800 new, about $100 on Ebay. Shhhhhhh....