Tone controls are like ketchup. Great on fries, not so much on most everything else. I became hooked on tone-less preamps by db and Dayton-Wright.
Only a miniscule number of discs require any EQ surgery and degrading the many for the few does not make sense. Adjusting level a db or two can often as not change adjust the tonal balance to make listenable enough and usually not much worse than tone controls that have their inflection points too far removed from the problem area.
As far as "seriously missing out", it's true. Without tone controls we're missing:
- detail loss and masking
- frequency dependent channel balance
- non-linear frequency response
- phase shift
Like most everything, there's no free lunch and we all have to choose our poison.
Only a miniscule number of discs require any EQ surgery and degrading the many for the few does not make sense. Adjusting level a db or two can often as not change adjust the tonal balance to make listenable enough and usually not much worse than tone controls that have their inflection points too far removed from the problem area.
As far as "seriously missing out", it's true. Without tone controls we're missing:
- detail loss and masking
- frequency dependent channel balance
- non-linear frequency response
- phase shift
Like most everything, there's no free lunch and we all have to choose our poison.