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Are tone controls worth a second look ?


Are tone controls still prohibited from ''high end''audio?

Seems to me that with all of the advances in electronic design, they starting to make sense again.

In my humble opinion, tone controls are not unlike adding, or substracting sonic flavor to music reproduction. Like switching interconnects or speaker cables that will affect the sound in X or Y manner.

I am not reffering to a technical comparison between tone controls and cables, but rather that their effect could be similar. When you think of it, cables have their own colors. And we pay dearly for this without the opportunity of a ''tone defeat'' button.

What do you think?
sonicbeauty
polk432
1,142 posts
 
Unless you want to speaker roll, tone controls are good if they are a good component. I have a DBX 14/10 EQ, Cary tube amp and pre, with Linn sources. It is mostly used for attenuation rather than boost. I hear nothing that degrades the signal, hooked up to the system or not. Good luck.
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,686 posts
 
There are lots of mfgrs that still use tone controls.
foster_9
1,638 posts
 
The MC MA 6900 is one I owned with tone controls. In general to me it was one dimensional and flat with or without the tone controls.
bryoncunningham
890 posts
 
I use the digital tone controls on my Meridian processor with good results. But I have heard digital tone controls that sound terrible. I guess, like so many things in audio, it's largely a matter of the quality of the implementation.
listener57
730 posts
 
Yes, worth having.
The older Quad preamps include very flexible tone and downward shelving control over the treble to tame the record or CD that sounds too bright.
Many imperfect recordings are transformed to become satisfying or at least listenable with the use of such an inexpensive reliable preamp. It is not state of the art on the majority of recordings which do not require any tone control, but fine for a secondary system.
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